A small correction to doc and comment of FSM for indexes
Alex Friedman <alexf01@gmail.com>
From: Alex Friedman <alexf01@gmail.com>
To: pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org
Date: 2025-02-25T17:24:14Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
Attachments
- v1-0001-A-small-correction-to-doc-and-comment-of-FSM-for-.patch (text/plain) patch v1-0001
Hi,
This patch fixes a couple of small inaccuracies in the doc and the comment for FSM about index handling.
1. In the doc for pg_freespacemap, it currently says:
> For indexes, what is tracked is entirely-unused pages, rather than free space within pages. Therefore, the values are not meaningful, just whether a page is full or empty.
However, as what is tracked is entirely-unused pages, the values mean whether a page is "in-use or empty", rather than "full or empty".
2. In indexfsm.c the header comment says:
> * This is similar to the FSM used for heap, in freespace.c, but instead
> * of tracking the amount of free space on pages, we only track whether
> * pages are completely free or in-use. We use the same FSM implementation
> * as for heaps, using BLCKSZ - 1 to denote used pages, and 0 for unused.
However, in the code we see that used pages are marked with 0:
> /*
> * RecordUsedIndexPage - mark a page as used in the FSM
> */
> void
> RecordUsedIndexPage(Relation rel, BlockNumber usedBlock)
> {
> RecordPageWithFreeSpace(rel, usedBlock, 0);
> }
And free pages are marked with BLCKSZ - 1:
> /*
> * RecordFreeIndexPage - mark a page as free in the FSM
> */
> void
> RecordFreeIndexPage(Relation rel, BlockNumber freeBlock)
> {
> RecordPageWithFreeSpace(rel, freeBlock, BLCKSZ - 1);
> }
And so, this patch also fixes the comment's "using BLCKSZ - 1 to denote used pages, and 0 for unused" to be "using 0 to denote used pages, and BLCKSZ - 1 for unused".
While these changes are minor, I've seen how this can cause a bit of confusion, and it would be good to clarify it.
Best regards,
Alex Friedman
Commits
-
doc: Correct description of values used in FSM for indexes
- e5cf186277f9 13.21 landed
- b209856b6224 14.18 landed
- 7ca50f90c097 15.13 landed
- 4fd0156a6de9 16.9 landed
- 2afdb9dd96fb 17.5 landed
- 44fe6ceb51f0 18.0 landed