Re: On disable_cost

Euler Taveira <euler@timbira.com.br>

From: Euler Taveira <euler@timbira.com.br>
To: Zhenghua Lyu <zlv@pivotal.io>
Cc: PostgreSQL Hackers <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>
Date: 2019-11-01T14:48:29Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
Em sex, 1 de nov de 2019 às 03:42, Zhenghua Lyu <zlv@pivotal.io> escreveu:
>
>     My issue: I did some spikes and tests on TPCDS 1TB Bytes data. For query 104, it generates
>  nestloop join even with enable_nestloop set off. And the final plan's total cost is very huge (about 1e24). But If I enlarge the disable_cost to 1e30, then, planner will generate hash join.
>
>     So I guess that disable_cost is not large enough for huge amount of data.
>
>     It is tricky to set disable_cost a huge number. Can we come up with better solution?
>
Isn't it a case for a GUC disable_cost? As Thomas suggested, DBL_MAX
upper limit should be sufficient.

>     The following thoughts are from Heikki:
>>
>>     Aside from not having a large enough disable cost, there's also the fact that the high cost might affect the rest of the plan, if we have to use a plan type that's disabled. For example, if a table doesn't have any indexes, but enable_seqscan is off, we might put the unavoidable Seq Scan on different side of a join than we we would with enable_seqscan=on, because of the high cost estimate.
>
>
>>
>> I think a more robust way to disable forbidden plan types would be to handle the disabling in add_path(). Instead of having a high disable cost on the Path itself, the comparison add_path() would always consider disabled paths as more expensive than others, regardless of the cost.
>
I'm afraid it is not as cheap as using diable_cost as a node cost. Are
you proposing to add a new boolean variable in Path struct to handle
those cases in compare_path_costs_fuzzily?


-- 
   Euler Taveira                                   Timbira -
http://www.timbira.com.br/
   PostgreSQL: Consultoria, Desenvolvimento, Suporte 24x7 e Treinamento



Commits

  1. Doc: add detail about EXPLAIN's "Disabled" property

  2. Adjust EXPLAIN's output for disabled nodes

  3. Fix order of parameters in a cost_sort call

  4. Show number of disabled nodes in EXPLAIN ANALYZE output.

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

  6. Remove grotty use of disable_cost for TID scan plans.