Re: [HACKERS] Index recreation in vacuum

[Charset koi8-r unsupported, filtering to ASCII...]
> Bruce Momjian wrote:
> >
> > We need two things:
> >
>
> > auto-create index on startup
>
> IMHO, It have to be controlled by user, because creating large index
> can take a number of hours. Sometimes it's better to live without
> indices
> at all, and then build it by hand after workday end.

OK, full circle time. That is why I recommended making a separate new
heap and index and using rename() to move them into place once the
vacuum is completed. In a failure during vacuum, the failed vacuum files
should be just removed on startup. No downtime, and index is in place.

Also, I thought about how to do rename() of multiple tables atomically.
My idea would be to have a pg_startup table that contains information
about what operations should be performed on startup. You could write
to the file in an atomic action, and if there was a failure, on startup,
the file could be read and the operations performed. We would basically
be using our own transaction system to guarantee file system atomicity.

--
Bruce Momjian | http://www.op.net/~candle
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