Re: eliminate xl_heap_visible to reduce WAL (and eventually set VM on-access)

Melanie Plageman <melanieplageman@gmail.com>

From: Melanie Plageman <melanieplageman@gmail.com>
To: Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org>
Cc: Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>, Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>, Andrey Borodin <x4mmm@yandex-team.ru>, PostgreSQL Hackers <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>, Heikki Linnakangas <hlinnaka@iki.fi>, Kirill Reshke <reshkekirill@gmail.com>
Date: 2025-12-16T16:07:17Z
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. Remove table_scan_analyze_next_tuple unneeded parameter OldestXmin

  2. Simplify visibility check in heap_page_would_be_all_visible()

  3. Eliminate use of cached VM value in lazy_scan_prune()

  4. Combine visibilitymap_set() cases in lazy_scan_prune()

  5. Fix const qualification in prune_freeze_setup()

  6. Simplify vacuum visibility assertion

  7. Split heap_page_prune_and_freeze() into helpers

  8. Assert that cutoffs are provided if freezing will be attempted

  9. Split PruneFreezeParams initializers to one field per line

  10. Refactor heap_page_prune_and_freeze() parameters into a struct

  11. Make heap_page_is_all_visible independent of LVRelState

  12. Inline TransactionIdFollows/Precedes[OrEquals]()

  13. Add helper for freeze determination to heap_page_prune_and_freeze

  14. Bump XLOG_PAGE_MAGIC after xl_heap_prune change

  15. Correct prune WAL record opcode name in comment

  16. Add error codes when vacuum discovers VM corruption

  17. Remove unused xl_heap_prune member, reason

  18. Remove unneeded VM pin from VM replay

  19. Add assert and log message to visibilitymap_set

  20. Add error codes to some corruption log messages

On Tue, Dec 16, 2025 at 7:18 AM Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org> wrote:
>
> You are not modifying deadoffsets in prune_freeze_setup(), but you are
> assigning its address to a pointer variable that is not const-qualified,
> and so it could be used to modify it later on.
>
> A caller to prune_freeze_setup() that sees the signature const
> PruneFreezeResult *presult could pass a pointer to a PruneFreezeResult
> object that is notionally in read-only memory.  But through the
> non-const-qualified pointer you could later modify the pointed-to
> memory, which would be invalid.  The point of propagating the qualifiers
> is to prevent that at compile time.

Thanks for the explanation. I've committed your proposed fix.

- Melanie