Re: AW: pg_index.indislossy

On Tue, Jul 10, 2001 at 01:36:33PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> Peter Eisentraut <peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net> writes:
> > But why is this called lossy? Shouldn't it be called "exceedy"?
>
> Good point ;-). "lossy" does sound like the index might "lose" tuples,
> which is exactly what it's not allowed to do; it must find all the
> tuples that match the query.
>
> The terminology is correct by analogy to "lossy compression" --- the
> index loses information, in the sense that its result isn't quite the
> result you wanted. But I can see where it'd confuse the unwary.
> Perhaps we should consult the literature and see if there is another
> term for this concept.

How about "hinty"? :-)

Seriously, "indislossy" is a singularly poor name for a predicate.
Also, are we so poor that we can't afford whole words, or even word
breaks? I propose "index_is_hint".

Actually, is the "ind[ex]" part even necessary?
How about "must_check_heap"?

Nathan Myers
ncm(at)zembu(dot)com