Re: Statistics Import and Export

Jeff Davis <pgsql@j-davis.com>

From: Jeff Davis <pgsql@j-davis.com>
To: Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>, Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>
Cc: Corey Huinker <corey.huinker@gmail.com>, Nathan Bossart <nathandbossart@gmail.com>, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>, Michael Paquier <michael@paquier.xyz>, jian he <jian.universality@gmail.com>, Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>, Matthias van de Meent <boekewurm+postgres@gmail.com>, Magnus Hagander <magnus@hagander.net>, Stephen Frost <sfrost@snowman.net>, Ashutosh Bapat <ashutosh.bapat.oss@gmail.com>, Peter Smith <smithpb2250@gmail.com>, PostgreSQL Hackers <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>, alvherre@alvh.no-ip.org
Date: 2025-03-07T01:42:30Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers

Commits

Same data as JSON: GET /api/v1/messages/:b64id/commits the thread's linked commits as JSON, with link sources. API reference →
  1. Change pg_dump default for statistics export.

  2. pg_dump: Adjust reltuples from 0 to -1 for dumps of older versions.

  3. vacuumdb: Don't skip empty relations in --missing-stats-only mode.

  4. pg_dump: Fix query for gathering attribute stats on older versions.

  5. Prevent redeclaration of typedef TocEntry.

  6. Remove unused function parameters in pg_backup_archiver.c.

  7. pg_dump: Retrieve attribute statistics in batches.

  8. pg_dump: Reduce memory usage of dumps with statistics.

  9. Skip second WriteToc() call for custom-format dumps without data.

  10. Add relallfrozen to pg_dump statistics.

  11. Matview statistics depend on matview data.

  12. Add pg_dump --with-{schema|data|statistics} options.

  13. Stats: use schemaname/relname instead of regclass.

  14. CREATE INDEX: do update index stats if autovacuum=off.

  15. Don't convert to and from floats in pg_dump.

  16. CREATE INDEX: don't update table stats if autovacuum=off.

  17. Organize and deduplicate statistics import tests.

  18. Address stats export review comments.

  19. Address stats import review comments.

  20. Add relallfrozen to pg_class

  21. Fix pg_strtof() to not crash on NULL endptr.

  22. Use attnum to identify index columns in pg_restore_attribute_stats().

  23. pg_dump: prepare attribute stats query.

  24. Avoid unnecessary relation stats query in pg_dump.

  25. Remove redundant pg_set_*_stats() variants.

  26. Do not use in-place updates for statistics import.

  27. Fix confusion about data type of pg_class.relpages and relallvisible.

  28. Documentation fixups for dumping statistics.

  29. Trial fix for old cross-version upgrades.

  30. Transfer statistics during pg_upgrade.

  31. Lock table in ShareUpdateExclusive when importing index stats.

  32. Use in-place updates for pg_restore_relation_stats().

  33. Improve error message for replication of generated columns.

  34. pg_dump: Add dumpSchema and dumpData derivative flags.

  35. Disallow modifying statistics on system columns.

  36. Add missing CommandCounterIncrement() in stats import functions.

  37. Add functions pg_restore_relation_stats(), pg_restore_attribute_stats().

  38. Documentation fixup.

  39. Add functions pg_set_attribute_stats() and pg_clear_attribute_stats().

  40. Change pg_*_relation_stats() functions to return type to void.

  41. Disable autovacuum for tables in stats import tests.

  42. Allow pg_set_relation_stats() to set relpages to -1.

  43. Fixup for pg_set_relation_stats().

  44. Create functions pg_set_relation_stats, pg_clear_relation_stats.

  45. Add memory/disk usage for Window aggregate nodes in EXPLAIN.

  46. Improve performance of dumpSequenceData().

  47. Add INJECTION_POINT_CACHED() to run injection points directly from cache

  48. Improve performance of binary_upgrade_set_pg_class_oids().

  49. Improve assertion in mdwritev()

  50. CREATE INDEX: do not update stats during binary upgrade.

  51. Redefine pg_class.reltuples to be -1 before the first VACUUM or ANALYZE.

Attachments

On Thu, 2025-03-06 at 11:15 -0500, Robert Haas wrote:
> To be honest, I am a bit surprised that we decided to enable this by
> default. It's not obvious to me that statistics should be regarded as
> part of the database in the same way that table definitions or table
> data are. That said, I'm not overwhelmingly opposed to that choice.
> However, even if it's the right choice in theory, we should maybe
> rethink if it's going to be too slow or use too much memory.

I don't have a strong opinion about whether stats will be opt-out or
opt-in for v18, but if they are opt-in, we would need to adjust the
available options a bit.

At minimum, we would need to at least add the option "--with-
statistics", because right now the only way to explicitly request stats
is to say "--statistics-only".

To generalize this concept: for each of {schema, data, stats} users
might want "yes", "no", or "only".

If we use this options scheme, it would be easy to change the default
for stats independently of the other options, if necessary, without
surprising consequences.

Patch attached. This patch does NOT change the default; stats are still
opt-out. But it makes it easier for users to start specifying what they
want or not explicitly, or to rely on the defaults if they prefer.

Note that the patch would mean we go from 2 options in v17:
  --{schema|data}-only

to 9 options in v18:
  --{with|no}-{schema|data|stats} and
  --{schema|data|stats}-only

I suggest we adjust the options now with something resembling the
attached patch and decide on changing the default sometime during beta.

Regards,
	Jeff Davis