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Re: pg_plan_advice

Ajay Pal <ajay.pal.k@gmail.com>

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From: Ajay Pal <ajay.pal.k@gmail.com>
To: Jakub Wartak <jakub.wartak@enterprisedb.com>
Cc: Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>, Lukas Fittl <lukas@fittl.com>, Jacob Champion <jacob.champion@enterprisedb.com>, Dian Fay <di@nmfay.com>, Matheus Alcantara <matheusssilv97@gmail.com>, PostgreSQL Hackers <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>
Date: 2026-01-21T11:51:57Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers 
Subsequent testing revealed that UNION operations involving constants
which enforce empty subplans result in the generated partition-wise
plan not being recognized by the planner.
Below is the query and output for more details.

CREATE TABLE a_test (id int, category text) PARTITION BY LIST (category);
CREATE TABLE a_active PARTITION OF a_test FOR VALUES IN ('active');
CREATE TABLE a_retired PARTITION OF a_test FOR VALUES IN ('retired');

postgres=# set pg_plan_advice.advice='PARTITIONWISE(unnamed_subquery)';
SET
postgres=# EXPLAIN (PLAN_ADVICE)
SELECT * FROM a_active WHERE id = 1
UNION ALL
SELECT * FROM a_active WHERE id = 2 AND 1=0; -- Constant false forces
                        QUERY PLAN
----------------------------------------------------------
 Seq Scan on a_active  (cost=0.00..25.88 rows=6 width=36)
   Filter: (id = 1)
 Supplied Plan Advice:
   PARTITIONWISE(unnamed_subquery) /* not matched */
 Generated Plan Advice:
   SEQ_SCAN(a_active@unnamed_subquery)
   PARTITIONWISE(unnamed_subquery)
   NO_GATHER(a_active@unnamed_subquery)
(8 rows)

Thanks
Ajay

On Tue, Jan 20, 2026 at 2:50 PM Jakub Wartak
<jakub.wartak@enterprisedb.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Jan 19, 2026 at 9:00 PM Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, Jan 19, 2026 at 5:53 AM Jakub Wartak
> > <jakub.wartak@enterprisedb.com> wrote:
> > >    a) v10-0001 - any example producing such a dummy subplan? (whatever
> > > I've tried I cannot come up with one)
> [..]
> > EXPLAIN SELECT * FROM random() UNION SELECT * FROM random() WHERE false;
>
> Oh well, that was easy, thanks! Now I see `RTI 3 (function,
> in-from-clause): /  Subplan: setop_2 (dummy)`
>
> I don't have any further insights on v10-[124] other than mentioned earlier.
>
> > >    c) In v10-0004, maybe in pathnodes.h we could use typedef enum rather than
> > >       list of #defines? (see attached)
> >
> > I personally hate that style and I think Andres loves it. Whee!
>
> Oh, ok, nvm, but while two of You we are at this, vim or emacs ? ;)
> /me ducks & covers
>
> > > 4. Some raw perf numbers on non-assert builds (please ignore +/- 3%
> > > jumps), it just hurts
> > >    in one scenario where oq2 drops like 9% of juice (quite expected, it's not
> > >    an issue to be, just posting full results)
> > >
> > > tps                           oq1  oq2    oq3  oq4
> > > master                        41   14745  439  435
> > > master+v10-000[1-4]           42   15055  439  432
> > > master+v10full                41   14734  429  437
> > > master+v10full+loaded         42   15014  442  438
> > > master+v10full+loaded+advice  41   13481  424  439
> > >
> > > (same but in percentages)
> > > %tps_to_master                oq1  oq2    oq3  oq4
> > > master                        100  100    100  100
> > > master+v10-000[1-4]           102  102    100  99
> > > master+v10full                100  100    98   100
> > > master+v10full+loaded         102  102    101  101
> > > master+v10full+loaded+advice  100  91     97   101
> >
> > I think these numbers look pretty good. I mean, there is obviously
> > room for improvement. We should look at where the CPU cycles are going
> > in the oq2 case and try to optimize. But even without that, it's not
> > terrible, IMHO.
> >
> > > So out of curiosity the oq2 on 1 CPU core behavior looks like below:
> > > - no advices --> ~1000 TPS
> > > - enabled pg_plan_advice.advice to lengthy, but unrelated thing and it
> > > gets ~890TPS
> >
> > I'm not sure exactly where the CPU cycles are going here, but one
> > known problem is that we have to re-parse the advice string for every
> > query. This thread discusses the challenges of creating some
> > infrastructure that would allow us to avoid that:
> >
> > http://postgr.es/m/f87504a6-9dfd-4467-89de-84232cb54f72@gmail.com
> >
> > Maybe I should start thinking about other ways to avoid that overhead,
>
> Meh...
>
> > because that thread doesn't seem to be progressing much, but maybe the
> > reparsing isn't even the main problem.
> > > - in both cases (empty and set) the bottleneck seems to in palloc0, but
> > >     empty plan_advice: it's more like palloc0() <- newNode() <-
> > > create_index_path()
> > >     <- build_index_paths()
> > >     with plan_advice set: palloc0() <- newNode() <- create_nestloop_path() ..
> >
> > I've also seen some palloc-related issues with the patch -- it has to
> > build some data structures and that does palloc stuff -- but there
> > shouldn't really be any difference in the code paths you show here.
> > That's just core code, which should be doing the same thing either way
> > if the advice is not relevant.
>
> Yeah, in both it looks like memory allocation and lots of newNode()
> called , quite expected.
>
> > > - so if anything people should not put something there blindly, but just SET
> > >   and RESET afterwards (unless we get pinning of SQL plan id to advices) as
> > >   this might have cost in high-TPS scenarios.
> >
> > Yes, I think that's definitely a potential issue. I'd like the
> > overhead of this module to be as low as possible, but it's bound to
> > have at least some overhead, and people will have to decide whether
> > it's worth it.
>
> I think we should simply ignore, and maybe later just note the fact this is
> not free with a single sentence in some docs for 0005. I was just curious of the
> impact and this was measured using pure EXPLAIN (so without query execution to
> measure impact of non-empty pg_plan_advice), I'm assuming that in
> properly managed
> systems execution part will always dominate the workload anyway and
> one should be
> using prepared statements anyway.
>
> -J.
>
>

Commits

Same data as JSON: GET /api/v1/messages/:b64id/commits the thread's linked commits as JSON, with link sources. API reference →

  1. pg_plan_advice: Fix another unique-semijoin bug.

  2. pg_plan_advice: Export feedback-related definitions.

  3. pg_plan_advice: Fix a bug when a subquery is pruned away entirely.

  4. pg_plan_advice: Add alternatives test to Makefile.

  5. pg_plan_advice: Handle non-repeatable TABLESAMPLE scans.

  6. pg_stash_advice: Allow stashed advice to be persisted to disk.

  7. Add pg_stash_advice contrib module.

  8. pg_plan_advice: Avoid assertion failure with partitionwise aggregate.

  9. pg_plan_advice: Invent DO_NOT_SCAN(relation_identifier).

  10. Add an alternative_plan_name field to PlannerInfo.

  11. pg_plan_advice: Refactor to invent pgpa_planner_info

  12. Respect disabled_nodes in fix_alternative_subplan.

  13. get_memoize_path: Don't exit quickly when PGS_NESTLOOP_PLAIN is unset.

  14. test_plan_advice: Set TAP test priority 50 in meson.build.

  15. pg_plan_advice: Avoid a crash under GEQO.

  16. Test pg_plan_advice using a new test_plan_advice module.

  17. pg_plan_advice: Always install pg_plan_advice.h, and in the right place

  18. pg_plan_advice: Fix failures to accept identifier keywords.

  19. Add pg_plan_advice contrib module.

  20. Allow extensions to mark an individual index as disabled.

  21. Replace get_relation_info_hook with build_simple_rel_hook.

  22. Store information about Append node consolidation in the final plan.

  23. Store information about elided nodes in the final plan.

  24. Store information about range-table flattening in the final plan.

  25. Pass cursorOptions to planner_setup_hook.

  26. Fix PGS_CONSIDER_NONPARTIAL interaction with Materialize nodes.

  27. Fix mistakes in commit 4020b370f214315b8c10430301898ac21658143f

  28. Allow for plugin control over path generation strategies.

  29. Update some comments for fasthash

  30. Allow passing a pointer to GetNamedDSMSegment()'s init callback.

  31. Don't reset the pathlist of partitioned joinrels.

  32. Treat number of disabled nodes in a path as a separate cost metric.