Re: A bug in mapping attributes in ATExecAttachPartition()

Ashutosh Bapat <ashutosh.bapat@enterprisedb.com>

From: Ashutosh Bapat <ashutosh.bapat@enterprisedb.com>
To: Amit Langote <Langote_Amit_f8@lab.ntt.co.jp>
Cc: Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>, pgsql-hackers <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>, Amit Langote <amitlangote09@gmail.com>
Date: 2017-06-08T10:25:08Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 3:13 PM, Amit Langote
<Langote_Amit_f8@lab.ntt.co.jp> wrote:
> On 2017/06/08 1:44, Robert Haas wrote:
>> On Wed, Jun 7, 2017 at 7:47 AM, Ashutosh Bapat
>> <ashutosh.bapat@enterprisedb.com> wrote:
>>> In ATExecAttachPartition() there's following code
>>>
>>> 13715         partnatts = get_partition_natts(key);
>>> 13716         for (i = 0; i < partnatts; i++)
>>> 13717         {
>>> 13718             AttrNumber  partattno;
>>> 13719
>>> 13720             partattno = get_partition_col_attnum(key, i);
>>> 13721
>>> 13722             /* If partition key is an expression, must not skip
>>> validation */
>>> 13723             if (!partition_accepts_null &&
>>> 13724                 (partattno == 0 ||
>>> 13725                  !bms_is_member(partattno, not_null_attrs)))
>>> 13726                 skip_validate = false;
>>> 13727         }
>>>
>>> partattno obtained from the partition key is the attribute number of
>>> the partitioned table but not_null_attrs contains the attribute
>>> numbers of attributes of the table being attached which have NOT NULL
>>> constraint on them. But the attribute numbers of partitioned table and
>>> the table being attached may not agree i.e. partition key attribute in
>>> partitioned table may have a different position in the table being
>>> attached. So, this code looks buggy. Probably we don't have a test
>>> which tests this code with different attribute order between
>>> partitioned table and the table being attached. I didn't get time to
>>> actually construct a testcase and test it.
>
> There seem to be couple of bugs here:
>
> 1. When partition's key attributes differ in ordering from the parent,
>    predicate_implied_by() will give up due to structural inequality of
>    Vars in the expressions.  By fixing this, we can get it to return
>    'true' when it's really so.
>
> 2. As you said, we store partition's attribute numbers in the
>    not_null_attrs bitmap, but then check partattno (which is the parent's
>    attribute number which might differ) against the bitmap, which seems
>    like it might produce incorrect result.  If, for example,
>    predicate_implied_by() set skip_validate to true, and the above code
>    failed to set skip_validate to false where it should have, then we
>    would wrongly end up skipping the scan.  That is, rows in the partition
>    will contain null values whereas the partition constraint does not
>    allow it.  It's hard to reproduce this currently, because with
>    different ordering of attributes, predicate_refute_by() never returns
>    true (as mentioned in 1 above), so skip_validate does not need to be
>    set to false again.
>
> Consider this example:
>
> create table p (a int, b char) partition by list (a);
>
> create table p1 (b char not null, a int check (a in (1)));
> insert into p1 values ('b', null);
>
> Note that not_null_attrs for p1 will contain 1 corresponding to column b,
> which matches key attribute of the parent, that is 1, corresponding to
> column a.  Hence we end up wrongly concluding that p1's partition key
> column does not allow nulls.
>
>> I think this code could be removed entirely in light of commit
>> 3ec76ff1f2cf52e9b900349957b42d28128b7bc7.
>
> I am assuming you think that because now we emit IS NOT NULL constraint
> internally for any partition keys that do not allow null values (including
> all the keys of range partitions as of commit
> 3ec76ff1f2cf52e9b900349957b42d28128b7bc7).  But those IS NOT NULL
> constraint expressions are inconclusive as far as the application of
> predicate_implied_by() to determine if we can skip the scan is concerned.
> So even if predicate_implied_by() returned 'true', we cannot conclude,
> just based on that result, that there are not any null values in the
> partition keys.

I am not able to understand this. Are you saying that
predicate_implied_by() returns true even when it's not implied when
NOT NULL constraints are involved? That sounds like a bug in
predicate_implied_by(), which should be fixed instead of adding code
to pepper over it?

-- 
Best Wishes,
Ashutosh Bapat
EnterpriseDB Corporation
The Postgres Database Company


Commits

  1. Fix inconsistent capitalization.

  2. Fix bug in deciding whether to scan newly-attached partition.

  3. Fix lock upgrade hazard in ATExecAttachPartition.

  4. Code beautification for ATExecAttachPartition.

  5. Teach predtest.c about CHECK clauses to fix partitioning bugs.

  6. Don't explicitly mark range partitioning columns NOT NULL.