Re: CHECK constraints in pg_dump

On Wed, 2003-02-26 at 14:54, Tom Lane wrote:
> "Christopher Kings-Lynne" <chriskl(at)familyhealth(dot)com(dot)au> writes:
> >> Why would there be any speed advantage?
>
> > Is it not faster to add it when all the data is there, rather than
> > evaluating it as each row is inserted, like indexes?
>
> I don't see why. There are good algorithmic reasons why bulk-loading
> an index is faster than retail insertions --- mainly that btree goes
> out of its way to make it so, with a special code path. But I see
> no reason why checking a constraint expression is going to be any
> faster as a post-pass than when done while loading the data. If
> anything, I'd guess it to be slower because you have to re-read the
> table.

One reason for delaying constraint checks until after all data is loaded
is that any CHECK constraints against other tables must be hidden in
functions. For example, we cannot say:

CHECK (col1 > othertable.col2 WHERE id = othertable.id).

Since such checks are hidden, I suppose it will not be possible to
arrange the order of loading in pg_dump to ensure that such checks
succeed; therefore it would be better for any check constraint involving
a function to be delayed till after all data is loaded.

--
Oliver Elphick Oliver(dot)Elphick(at)lfix(dot)co(dot)uk
Isle of Wight, UK http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver
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