Re: BUG #17994: Invalidating relcache corrupts tupDesc inside ExecEvalFieldStoreDeForm()

Andres Freund <andres(at)anarazel(dot)de> writes:
> On 2023-06-28 14:49:34 -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
>> That's not sufficient lifespan in the scenario we're dealing
>> with here: if the tupdesc gets trashed anytime before the
>> eventual ExecEvalFieldStoreForm(), we'll have garbage in the
>> result tuple.

> What are the scenarios that could lead to the tupledesc being released before
> ExecEvalFieldStoreForm()? I guess a function call that does an ALTER TABLE
> might do the trick? But shouldn't such cases be prohibited by
> CheckTableNotInUse()?

Any old cache flush could do it; you don't need a local trigger event.
(Alexander's original test case uses CREATE PUBLICATION to trigger
the cache flush, but that's just an easy way to make it more-or-less
deterministic.)

> If other sessions caused the tupledesc to be changed,
> we should already hang onto the old definition via the
> RememberToFreeTupleDescAtEOX() mechanism?

I believe the tupdesc in question is actually in the typcache,
which doesn't have anything like RememberToFreeTupleDescAtEOX
(which is a horrid hack anyway if you ask me).

We could probably make things better for this specific case by
teaching the typcache not to replace a cached tupdesc unless its
contents actually change. But that just makes it harder to get
to a bug instance; it's not a cure-all.

regards, tom lane