Horton

Re: Eager aggregation, take 3

Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>

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From: Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>
To: Richard Guo <guofenglinux@gmail.com>
Cc: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>, Tender Wang <tndrwang@gmail.com>, Paul George <p.a.george19@gmail.com>, Andy Fan <zhihuifan1213@163.com>, PostgreSQL-development <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>, pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org, Matheus Alcantara <matheusssilv97@gmail.com>
Date: 2025-09-12T18:47:48Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers 
On Fri, Sep 12, 2025 at 5:34 AM Richard Guo <guofenglinux@gmail.com> wrote:
> I really like this idea.  Currently, aggtransspace represents an
> estimate of the transition state size provided by the aggregate
> definition.  If it's set to zero, a default estimate based on the
> state data type is used.  Negative values currently have no defined
> meaning.  I think it makes perfect sense to reuse this field so that
> a negative value indicates that the transition state data can grow
> unboundedly in size.
>
> Attached 0002 implements this idea.  It requires fewer code changes
> than I expected.  This is mainly because that our current code uses
> aggtransspace in such a way that if it's a positive value, that value
> is used as it's provided by the aggregate definition; otherwise, some
> heuristics are applied to estimate the size.  For the aggregates that
> accumulate input rows (e.g., array_agg, string_agg), I don't currently
> have a better heuristic for estimating their size, so I've chosen to
> keep the current logic.  This won't regress anything in estimating
> transition state data size.

This might be OK, but it's not what I was suggesting: I was suggesting
trying to do a calculation like space_used = -aggtransspace *
rowcount, not just using a <0 value as a sentinel.

-- 
Robert Haas
EDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com

Commits

  1. Fix eager aggregation for semi/antijoin inner rels

  2. Cover additional errors and corner conditions in repack.c

  3. Fix volatile function evaluation in eager aggregation

  4. Fix collation handling for grouping keys in eager aggregation

  5. Rename apply_at to apply_agg_at for clarity

  6. Fix comment in eager_aggregate.sql

  7. Remove unnecessary include of "utils/fmgroids.h"

  8. Implement Eager Aggregation

  9. Allow negative aggtransspace to indicate unbounded state size

  10. Add macros for looping through a List without a ListCell.

  11. Account for the effect of lossy pages when costing bitmap scans.

  12. Fix a thinko in join_is_legal: when we decide we can implement a semijoin