Re: [PATCH] Incremental sort (was: PoC: Partial sort)

Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>

From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: Tomas Vondra <tomas.vondra@2ndquadrant.com>
Cc: James Coleman <jtc331@gmail.com>, Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@2ndquadrant.com>, Michael Paquier <michael@paquier.xyz>, Rafia Sabih <rafia.pghackers@gmail.com>, Peter Geoghegan <pg@bowt.ie>, Simon Riggs <simon@2ndquadrant.com>, Shaun Thomas <shaun.thomas@2ndquadrant.com>, Dmitry Dolgov <9erthalion6@gmail.com>, Alexander Korotkov <a.korotkov@postgrespro.ru>, PostgreSQL Developers <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>, Andreas Karlsson <andreas@proxel.se>
Date: 2020-03-31T22:35:32Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
Tomas Vondra <tomas.vondra@2ndquadrant.com> writes:
> In general, I think it'd be naive that we can make planner smarter with
> no extra overhead spent on planning, and we can never accept patches
> adding even tiny overhead. With that approach we'd probably end up with
> a trivial planner that generates just a single query plan, because
> that's going to be the fastest planner. A realistic approach needs to
> consider both the planning and execution phase, and benefits of this
> patch seem to be clear - if you have queries that do benefit from it.

I think that's kind of attacking a straw man, though.  The thing that
people push back on, or should push back on IMO, is when a proposed
patch adds significant slowdown to queries that it has no or very little
hope of improving.  The trick is to do expensive stuff only when
there's a good chance of getting a better plan out of it.

			regards, tom lane



Commits

  1. Further adjustments to Hashagg EXPLAIN ANALYZE output

  2. Rework EXPLAIN format for incremental sort

  3. Fix typos and improve incremental sort comments

  4. Stabilize incremental_sort tests

  5. Minor improvements in Incremental Sort explain

  6. Consider Incremental Sort paths at additional places

  7. Fix representation of SORT_TYPE_STILL_IN_PROGRESS.

  8. Fix failures in incremental_sort due to number of workers

  9. Fix show_incremental_sort_info with force_parallel_mode

  10. Implement Incremental Sort

  11. Fix handling of "Subplans Removed" field in EXPLAIN output.

  12. Fix EXPLAIN (SETTINGS) to follow policy about when to print empty fields.

  13. Ensure plpgsql result tuples have the right composite type marking.

  14. Propagate sort instrumentation from workers back to leader.

  15. Make new regression test case parallel-safe, and improve its output.

  16. Push limit through subqueries to underlying sort, where possible.

  17. Fix inappropriate printing of never-measured times in EXPLAIN.

  18. Fix some infelicities in EXPLAIN output for parallel query plans.