Re: unlogged tables vs. GIST

On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 3:15 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
> Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
>> On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 3:03 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
>>> Yeah.  I think that BM_UNLOGGED might be a poor choice for the flag name,
>>> just because it overstates what the bufmgr needs to assume.
>
>> I was actually thinking of adding BM_UNLOGGED even before this
>> discussion, because that would allow unlogged buffers to be excluded
>> from non-shutdown checkpoints.  We could add two flags with different
>> semantics that take on, under present rules, the same value, but I'd
>> be disinclined to burn the extra bit without a concrete need.
>
> bufmgr is currently using eight bits out of a 16-bit flag field, and
> IIRC at least five of those have been there since the beginning.  So our
> accretion rate is something like one bit every four years.  I think not
> being willing to use two bits to describe two unrelated behaviors is
> penny-wise and pound-foolish --- bufmgr is already complicated enough,
> let's not add useless barriers to readability.

Allright, what do you want to call the other bit, then?  BM_SKIP_XLOG_FLUSH?

I have a feeling we may also be creating BM_UNTIDY rather soon, per
previous discussion of hint bit I/O.

Since these bits will only be set/cleared when the buffer mapping is
changed, can we examine this bit without taking the spinlock?  If not,
we're going to have to stick an extra spinlock acquire/release into
FlushBuffer(), which sounds rather unappealing.

-- 
Robert Haas
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