Re: vacuum_truncate configuration parameter and isset_offset

Nikolay Shaplov <dhyan@nataraj.su>

From: Nikolay Shaplov <dhyan@nataraj.su>
To: "David G. Johnston" <david.g.johnston@gmail.com>
Cc: Nathan Bossart <nathandbossart@gmail.com>, Álvaro Herrera <alvherre@alvh.no-ip.org>, Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>, pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org, Robert Treat <rob@xzilla.net>, Fujii Masao <masao.fujii@oss.nttdata.com>, Albe <laurenz.albe@cybertec.at>, Gurjeet Singh <gurjeet@singh.im>, Will Storey <will@summercat.com>, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Date: 2025-03-24T17:57:39Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
В письме от понедельник, 24 марта 2025 г. 20:37:50 MSK пользователь David G. 
Johnston написал:

> My main concern when first seeing this was adding an integer to every
> single option in the entire system for something that is going to be zero
> 99.9% of the time.  A bit bloated but not directly impacting behavior.

That is 100% true.

> I  wanted to avoid that by just looking in pg_class.reloptions for the
> vacuum_truncate setting when needed.

This goes against all current practice of options usage. Option is mapped to a 
C structure, once loaded it is cached, and reused while cache is still alive. 
Doing other way will increase the mess.

> I'd rather do that then turn this into an enum that is masquerading as a 
boolean.

I think the core of the problem, is that you still thinking about this option 
as a boolean. It is no longer a boolean. It is nullable-boolean, or call it 
whatever you want, but not a boolean anymore. It has 3 values available. The 
most simple way to implement that is to use enum.

If you want to have not-set/null status marked as a separate flag, you can have 
it. But then you should redesign all options to follow that logic: do not use 
unreachable default value, but use null/unset flag. That is acceptable, if you 
really need this, but should be done to all options. But I do not think it 
worth efforts.

-- 
Nikolay Shaplov aka Nataraj
Fuzzing Engineer at Postgres Professional
Matrix IM: @dhyan:nataraj.su