parallel "return query" is no good

Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>

From: Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>
To: "pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org" <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>
Date: 2017-03-23T16:50:40Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers

Attachments

Commit 7aea8e4f2daa4b39ca9d1309a0c4aadb0f7ed81b allowed a parallel
plan to be generated when for a RETURN QUERY or RETURN QUERY EXECUTE
statement in a PL/pgsql block.  As it turns out, the analysis that led
to this decision was totally wrong-headed, because the plan will
always be executed using SPI_cursor_fetch(portal, true, 50), which
will cause ExecutePlan() to get invoked with a count of 50, which will
cause it to run the parallel plan serially, without workers.
Therefore, passing CURSOR_OPT_PARALLEL_OK is a bad idea here; all it
can do is cause us to pick a parallel plan that's slow when executed
serially instead of the best serial plan.

The attached patch fixes it.  I plan to commit this and back-patch it
to 9.6, barring objections or better ideas.

I previously remarked on this in
http://postgr.es/m/CA+TgmobXEhvHbJtWDuPZM9bVSLiTj-kShxQJ2uM5GPDze9fRYA@mail.gmail.com
but I wasn't quite so clear what the whole picture was in that email
as I am now.

-- 
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

Commits

  1. plpgsql: Don't generate parallel plans for RETURN QUERY.

  2. Determine whether it's safe to attempt a parallel plan for a query.