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Re: Adding REPACK [concurrently]

Srinath Reddy Sadipiralla <srinath2133@gmail.com>

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From: Srinath Reddy Sadipiralla <srinath2133@gmail.com>
To: Antonin Houska <ah@cybertec.at>
Cc: Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@alvh.no-ip.org>, Mihail Nikalayeu <mihailnikalayeu@gmail.com>, Matthias van de Meent <boekewurm+postgres@gmail.com>, Pg Hackers <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>, Robert Treat <rob@xzilla.net>
Date: 2026-03-25T15:52:16Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers

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Hello,

While reviewing/testing V44 patch set , i found that if we run REPACK
(CONCURRENTLY)
without a table name inside a transaction block throws the error "REPACK
CONCURRENTLY requires explicit
table name" instead of the expected transaction block error. This occurs
because ExecRepack() validates the parsed options and missing relation
before verifying the transaction state.

I attached a patch below to maintain consistency with other commands like
VACUUM, REINDEX , and more
and also not to confuse the user , because if user runs REPACK
(CONCURRENTLY)
without a table name inside a transaction block, if user gets "REPACK
CONCURRENTLY requires explicit
table name" and then to correct the mistake the user gives table and again
runs the in
transaction block , just to find out a new error "cannot run inside a
transaction block".

psql (19devel)
Type "help" for help.

postgres=# BEGIN;
SET TRANSACTION READ ONLY;
BEGIN
SET
postgres=*# REPACK (concurrently);
ERROR:  REPACK CONCURRENTLY requires explicit table name

psql (19devel)
Type "help" for help.

postgres=# BEGIN;
SET TRANSACTION READ ONLY;
BEGIN
SET
postgres=*# REPACK (concurrently) stress_victim;
ERROR:  REPACK (CONCURRENTLY) cannot run inside a transaction block

After the fix:

psql (19devel)
Type "help" for help.

postgres=# BEGIN;
SET TRANSACTION READ ONLY;
BEGIN
SET
postgres=*# REPACK (concurrently);
ERROR:  REPACK (CONCURRENTLY) cannot run inside a transaction block

Thoughts?

-- 
Thanks,
Srinath Reddy Sadipiralla
EDB: https://www.enterprisedb.com/

Commits

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

  1. Allow old WAL recycling during REPACK CONCURRENTLY

  2. Advance restart_lsn more eagerly in LogicalConfirmReceivedLocation

  3. Remove unnecessary signal handler change

  4. Improve REPACK (CONCURRENTLY) error messages some more

  5. Revert "Allow logical replication snapshots to be database-specific"

  6. Move REPACK (CONCURRENTLY) test out of stock regression tests

  7. REPACK: do not require REPLICATION or LOGIN

  8. Add missing initialization

  9. Simplify declaration of memcpy target

  10. Reserve replication slots specifically for REPACK

  11. doc: Add an example of REPACK (CONCURRENTLY)

  12. Allow logical replication snapshots to be database-specific

  13. Avoid different-size pointer-to-integer cast

  14. Fix valgrind failure

  15. Add CONCURRENTLY option to REPACK

  16. Rename cluster.c to repack.c (and corresponding .h)

  17. Allow index_create to suppress index_build progress reporting

  18. Make index_concurrently_create_copy more general

  19. Document the 'command' column of pg_stat_progress_repack

  20. Introduce the REPACK command

  21. Toggle logical decoding dynamically based on logical slot presence.

  22. Split vacuumdb to create vacuuming.c/h

  23. Remove ReorderBufferTupleBuf structure.

  24. Revert changes to CONCURRENTLY that "sped up" Xmin advance

  25. VACUUM: ignore indexing operations with CONCURRENTLY