PostgreSQL 9.0.23 Documentation | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Prev | Up | Chapter 51. Index Access Method Interface Definition | Next |
In an index scan, the index access method is responsible for regurgitating the TIDs of all the tuples it has been told about that match the scan keys. The access method is not involved in actually fetching those tuples from the index's parent table, nor in determining whether they pass the scan's time qualification test or other conditions.
A scan key is the internal representation of a WHERE clause of the form index_key operator constant, where the index key is one of the columns of the index and the operator is one of the members of the operator family associated with that index column. An index scan has zero or more scan keys, which are implicitly ANDed — the returned tuples are expected to satisfy all the indicated conditions.
The access method can report that the index is lossy, or requires rechecks, for a particular query. This implies that the index scan will return all the entries that pass the scan key, plus possibly additional entries that do not. The core system's index-scan machinery will then apply the index conditions again to the heap tuple to verify whether or not it really should be selected. If the recheck option is not specified, the index scan must return exactly the set of matching entries.
Note that it is entirely up to the access method to ensure
that it correctly finds all and only the entries passing all the
given scan keys. Also, the core system will simply hand off all
the WHERE clauses that match the index
keys and operator families, without any semantic analysis to
determine whether they are redundant or contradictory. As an
example, given WHERE x > 4 AND x >
14 where x is a b-tree indexed
column, it is left to the b-tree amrescan
function to realize that the first
scan key is redundant and can be discarded. The extent of
preprocessing needed during amrescan
will depend on the extent to which the
index access method needs to reduce the scan keys to a
"normalized" form.
Some access methods return index entries in a well-defined order, others do not. If entries are returned in sorted order, the access method should set pg_am.amcanorder true to indicate that it supports ordered scans. All such access methods must use btree-compatible strategy numbers for their equality and ordering operators.
The amgettuple
function has a
direction argument, which can be either
ForwardScanDirection (the normal case)
or BackwardScanDirection. If the first
call after amrescan
specifies
BackwardScanDirection, then the set of
matching index entries is to be scanned back-to-front rather than
in the normal front-to-back direction, so amgettuple
must return the last matching tuple
in the index, rather than the first one as it normally would.
(This will only occur for access methods that advertise they
support ordered scans.) After the first call, amgettuple
must be prepared to advance the scan
in either direction from the most recently returned entry. (But
if pg_am.amcanbackward is false, all subsequent calls
will have the same direction as the first one.)
Access methods that support ordered scans must support
"marking" a position in a scan and
later returning to the marked position. The same position might
be restored multiple times. However, only one position need be
remembered per scan; a new ammarkpos
call overrides the previously marked
position. An access method that does not support ordered scans
should still provide mark and restore functions in pg_am, but it is sufficient to have them throw
errors if called.
Both the scan position and the mark position (if any) must be maintained consistently in the face of concurrent insertions or deletions in the index. It is OK if a freshly-inserted entry is not returned by a scan that would have found the entry if it had existed when the scan started, or for the scan to return such an entry upon rescanning or backing up even though it had not been returned the first time through. Similarly, a concurrent delete might or might not be reflected in the results of a scan. What is important is that insertions or deletions not cause the scan to miss or multiply return entries that were not themselves being inserted or deleted.
Instead of using amgettuple
, an
index scan can be done with amgetbitmap
to fetch all tuples in one call.
This can be noticeably more efficient than amgettuple
because it allows avoiding
lock/unlock cycles within the access method. In principle
amgetbitmap
should have the same
effects as repeated amgettuple
calls, but we impose several restrictions to simplify matters.
First of all, amgetbitmap
returns
all tuples at once and marking or restoring scan positions isn't
supported. Secondly, the tuples are returned in a bitmap which
doesn't have any specific ordering, which is why amgetbitmap
doesn't take a direction argument. Finally, amgetbitmap
does not guarantee any locking of
the returned tuples, with implications spelled out in Section 51.4.
Note that it is permitted for an access method to implement
only amgetbitmap
and not
amgettuple
, or vice versa, if its
internal implementation is unsuited to one API or the other.