Re: Add SPLIT PARTITION/MERGE PARTITIONS commands

Dmitry Koval <d.koval@postgrespro.ru>

From: Dmitry Koval <d.koval@postgrespro.ru>
To: Justin Pryzby <pryzby@telsasoft.com>
Cc: pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org
Date: 2022-11-28T22:30:14Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers

Commits

Same data as JSON: GET /api/v1/messages/:b64id/commits the thread's linked commits as JSON, with link sources. API reference →
  1. Adjust errcode in checkPartition()

  2. Fix usage of palloc() in MERGE/SPLIT PARTITION(s) code

  3. Implement ALTER TABLE ... SPLIT PARTITION ... command

  4. Implement ALTER TABLE ... MERGE PARTITIONS ... command

  5. Calculate agglevelsup correctly when Aggref contains a CTE.

  6. Use PqMsg_* macros in applyparallelworker.c.

  7. Restrict psql meta-commands in plain-text dumps.

  8. Ensure we have a snapshot when updating various system catalogs.

  9. Use specific collation where needed in new test

  10. Expand virtual generated columns in the planner

  11. Virtual generated columns

  12. Define PG_LOGICAL_DIR for path pg_logical/ in data folder

  13. Revert support for ALTER TABLE ... MERGE/SPLIT PARTITION(S) commands

  14. Avoid repeated table name lookups in createPartitionTable()

  15. Provide deterministic order for catalog queries in partition_split.sql

  16. Don't copy extended statistics during MERGE/SPLIT partition operations

  17. Fix the name collision detection in MERGE/SPLIT partition operations

  18. Fix regression tests conflict in 3ca43dbbb6

  19. Add permission check for MERGE/SPLIT partition operations

  20. Fix one more portability shortcoming in new test_pg_dump test.

  21. Inherit parent's AM for partition MERGE/SPLIT operations

  22. Add tab completion for partition MERGE/SPLIT operations

  23. Rename tables in tests of partition MERGE/SPLIT operations

  24. Make new partitions with parent's persistence during MERGE/SPLIT

  25. Document the way partition MERGE/SPLIT operations create new partitions

  26. Change the way ATExecMergePartitions() handles the name collision

  27. Grammar fixes for split/merge partitions code

  28. Checks for ALTER TABLE ... SPLIT/MERGE PARTITIONS ... commands

  29. Fix some grammer errors from error messages and codes comments

  30. Support TZ and OF format codes in to_timestamp().

  31. Support identity columns in partitioned tables

  32. Fix indentation in twophase.c

  33. Fix corner-case planner failure for MERGE.

  34. Doc: fix documentation example for bytea hex output format.

  35. Avoid repeated name lookups during table and index DDL.

Attachments

I'm sorry, I couldn't answer earlier...

1.
 > partbounds.c is adding 500+ LOC about checking if proposed partitions
 > meet the requirements (don't overlap, etc).  But a lot of those
 > checks must already happen, no?  Can you re-use/refactor the existing
 > checks ?

I a bit reduced the number of lines in partbounds.c and added comments.
Unfortunately, it is very difficult to re-use existing checks for other 
partitioned tables operations, because mostly part of PostgreSQL 
commands works with a single partition.
So for SPLIT/MERGE commands were created new checks for several partitions.

2.
 > Also, postgres already supports concurrent DDL (CREATE+ATTACH and
 > DETACH CONCURRENTLY).  Is it possible to leverage that ?
 > (Mostly to reduce the patch size, but also because maybe some cases
 > could be concurrent?).

Probably "ATTACH CONCURRENTLY" is not supported?
A few words about "DETACH CONCURRENTLY".
"DETACH CONCURRENTLY" can works because this command not move rows 
during detach partition (and so no reason to block detached partition).
"DETACH CONCURRENTLY" do not changes data, but changes partition 
description (partition is marked as "inhdetachpending = true" etc.).

For SPLIT and MERGE the situation is completely different - these 
commands transfer rows between sections.
Therefore partitions must be LOCKED EXCLUSIVELY during rows transfer.
Probably we can use concurrently partitions not participating in SPLIT 
and MERGE.
But now PostgreSQL has no possibilities to forbid using a part of 
partitions of a partitioned table (until the end of data transfer by 
SPLIT/MERGE commands).
Simple locking is not quite suitable here.
I see only one variant of SPLIT/MERGE CONCURRENTLY implementation that 
can be realized now:

* ShareUpdateExclusiveLock on partitioned table;
* AccessExclusiveLock on partition(s) which will be deleted and will be 
created during SPLIT/MEGRE command;
* transferring data between locked sections; operations with non-blocked 
partitions are allowed;
* sessions which want to use partition(s) which will be deleted, waits 
on locks;
* finally we release AccessExclusiveLock on partition(s) which will be 
deleted and delete them;
* waiting sessions will get errors "relation ... does not exist" (we can 
transform it to "relation structure was changed ... please try again"?).

It doesn't look pretty.
Therefore for the SPLIT/MERGE command the partitioned table is locked 
with AccessExclusiveLock.

3.
 > An UPDATE on a partitioned table will move tuples from one partition
 > to another.  Is there a way to re-use that?

This could be realized using methods that are called from 
ExecCrossPartitionUpdate().
But using these methods is more expensive than the current 
implementation of the SPLIT/MERGE commands.
SPLIT/MERGE commands uses "bulk insert" and there is low overhead for 
finding a partition to insert data: for MERGE is not need to search 
partition; for SPLIT need to use simple search from several partitions 
(listed in the SPLIT command).
Below is a test example.

a. Transferring data from the table "test2" to partitions "partition1" 
and "partition2" using the current implementation of tuple routing in 
PostgreSQL:

CREATE TABLE test (a int, b char(10)) PARTITION BY RANGE (a);
CREATE TABLE partition1 PARTITION OF test FOR VALUES FROM (10) TO (20);
CREATE TABLE partition2 PARTITION OF test FOR VALUES FROM (20) TO (30);
CREATE TABLE test2 (a int, b char(10));
INSERT INTO test2 (a, b) SELECT 11, 'a' FROM generate_series(1, 1000000);
INSERT INTO test2 (a, b) SELECT 22, 'b' FROM generate_series(1, 1000000);
INSERT INTO test(a, b) SELECT a, b FROM test2;
DROP TABLE test2;
DROP TABLE test;

Three attempts (the results are little different), the best result:

INSERT 0 2000000
Time: 4467,814 ms (00:04,468)

b. Transferring data from the partition "partition0" to partitions 
"partition 1" and "partition2" using SPLIT command:

CREATE TABLE test (a int, b char(10)) PARTITION BY RANGE (a);
CREATE TABLE partition0 PARTITION OF test FOR VALUES FROM (0) TO (30);
INSERT INTO test (a, b) SELECT 11, 'a' FROM generate_series(1, 1000000);
INSERT INTO test (a, b) SELECT 22, 'b' FROM generate_series(1, 1000000);
ALTER TABLE test SPLIT PARTITION partition0 INTO
   (PARTITION partition0 FOR VALUES FROM (0) TO (10),
    PARTITION partition1 FOR VALUES FROM (10) TO (20),
    PARTITION partition2 FOR VALUES FROM (20) TO (30));
DROP TABLE test;

Three attempts (the results are little different), the best result:

ALTER TABLE
Time: 3840,127 ms (00:03,840)

So the current implementation of tuple routing is ~16% slower than the 
SPLIT command.
That's quite a lot.


With best regards,
Dmitry Koval

Postgres Professional: http://postgrespro.com