Re: Large files for relations

Peter Eisentraut <peter.eisentraut@enterprisedb.com>

From: Peter Eisentraut <peter.eisentraut@enterprisedb.com>
To: Thomas Munro <thomas.munro@gmail.com>, Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>
Cc: Stephen Frost <sfrost@snowman.net>, Dagfinn Ilmari Mannsåker <ilmari@ilmari.org>, Jim Mlodgenski <jimmy76@gmail.com>, pgsql-hackers <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>
Date: 2023-05-24T06:18:13Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
On 24.05.23 02:34, Thomas Munro wrote:
> Thanks all for the feedback.  It was a nice idea and it *almost*
> works, but it seems like we just can't drop segmented mode.  And the
> automatic transition schemes I showed don't make much sense without
> that goal.
> 
> What I'm hearing is that something simple like this might be more acceptable:
> 
> * initdb --rel-segsize (cf --wal-segsize), default unchanged

makes sense

> * pg_upgrade would convert if source and target don't match

This would be good, but it could also be an optional or later feature.

Maybe that should be a different mode, like 
--copy-and-adjust-as-necessary, so that users would have to opt into 
what would presumably be slower than plain --copy, rather than being 
surprised by it, if they unwittingly used incompatible initdb options.

> I would probably also leave out those Windows file API changes, too.
> --rel-segsize would simply refuse larger sizes until someone does the
> work on that platform, to keep the initial proposal small.

Those changes from off_t to pgoff_t?  Yes, it would be good to do 
without those.  Apart of the practical problems that have been brought 
up, this was a major annoyance with the proposed patch set IMO.

> I would probably leave the experimental copy_on_write() ideas out too,
> for separate discussion in a separate proposal.

right