Re: Allow CLUSTER, VACUUM FULL and REINDEX to change tablespace on the fly

On Thu, Sep 19, 2019 at 05:40:41PM +0300, Alexey Kondratov wrote:
> On 19.09.2019 16:21, Robert Haas wrote:
>> So, earlier in this thread, I suggested making this part of ALTER
>> TABLE, and several people seemed to like that idea. Did we have a
>> reason for dropping that approach?

Personally, I don't find this idea very attractive as ALTER TABLE is
already complicated enough with all the subqueries we already support
in the command, all the logic we need to maintain to make combinations
of those subqueries in a minimum number of steps, and also the number
of bugs we have seen because of the amount of complication present.

> If we add this option to REINDEX, then for 'ALTER TABLE tb_name action1,
> REINDEX SET TABLESPACE tbsp_name, action3' action2 will be just a direct
> alias to 'REINDEX TABLE tb_name SET TABLESPACE tbsp_name'. So it seems
> practical to do this for REINDEX first.
> 
> The only one concern I have against adding REINDEX to ALTER TABLE in this
> context is that it will allow user to write such a chimera:
>
> ALTER TABLE tb_name REINDEX SET TABLESPACE tbsp_name, SET TABLESPACE
> tbsp_name;
>
> when they want to move both table and all the indexes. Because simple
> ALTER TABLE tb_name REINDEX, SET TABLESPACE tbsp_name;
> looks ambiguous. Should it change tablespace of table, indexes or both?

Tricky question, but we don't change the tablespace of indexes when
using an ALTER TABLE, so I would say no on compatibility grounds.
ALTER TABLE has never touched the tablespace of indexes, and I don't
think that we should begin to do so.
--
Michael