Re: Default setting for enable_hashagg_disk

Tomas Vondra <tomas.vondra@2ndquadrant.com>

From: Tomas Vondra <tomas.vondra@2ndquadrant.com>
To: Jeff Davis <pgsql@j-davis.com>
Cc: Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>, Justin Pryzby <pryzby@telsasoft.com>, Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>, David Rowley <dgrowleyml@gmail.com>, Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>, Melanie Plageman <melanieplageman@gmail.com>, pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
Date: 2020-06-25T23:23:16Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers, pgsql-docs
On Thu, Jun 25, 2020 at 09:42:33AM -0700, Jeff Davis wrote:
>On Wed, 2020-06-24 at 12:31 -0700, Andres Freund wrote:
>> nodeAgg.c already treats those separately:
>>
>> void
>> hash_agg_set_limits(double hashentrysize, uint64 input_groups, int
>> used_bits,
>> 					Size *mem_limit, uint64
>> *ngroups_limit,
>> 					int *num_partitions)
>> {
>> 	int			npartitions;
>> 	Size		partition_mem;
>>
>> 	/* if not expected to spill, use all of work_mem */
>> 	if (input_groups * hashentrysize < work_mem * 1024L)
>> 	{
>> 		if (num_partitions != NULL)
>> 			*num_partitions = 0;
>> 		*mem_limit = work_mem * 1024L;
>> 		*ngroups_limit = *mem_limit / hashentrysize;
>> 		return;
>> 	}
>
>The reason this code exists is to decide how much of work_mem to set
>aside for spilling (each spill partition needs an IO buffer).
>
>The alternative would be to fix the number of partitions before
>processing a batch, which didn't seem ideal. Or, we could just ignore
>the memory required for IO buffers, like HashJoin.
>

I think the conclusion from the recent HashJoin discussions is that not
accounting for BufFiles is an issue, and we want to fix it. So repeating
that for HashAgg would be a mistake, IMHO.

>Granted, this is an example where an underestimate can give an
>advantage, but I don't think we want to extend the concept into other
>areas.
>

I agree.


regards

-- 
Tomas Vondra                  http://www.2ndQuadrant.com
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Remote DBA, Training & Services



Commits

  1. Add hash_mem_multiplier GUC.

  2. HashAgg: use better cardinality estimate for recursive spilling.

  3. Remove hashagg_avoid_disk_plan GUC.

  4. Doc fixup for hashagg_avoid_disk_plan GUC.

  5. Rework HashAgg GUCs.

  6. Disk-based Hash Aggregation.

  7. Implement partition-wise grouping/aggregation.

  8. Defer creation of partially-grouped relation until it's needed.