Re: Online index builds

On Sat, Jul 15, 2006 at 09:10:46PM -0400, Greg Stark wrote:
>
> Hannu Krosing <hannu(at)skype(dot)net> writes:
>
> > Maybe we can show progress indicators in status line (either
> > pg_stat_activity.current_query or commandline shown in ps), like
> >
> > WAITING TO START PHASE 1 - WAITING FOR TRANSACTION XXX TO COMPLETE
> >
> > or
> >
> > INSERTING INDEX ENTRY N OF M
> >
> > changing every few seconds.
>
> Hm. That would be very interesting. I'll say that one of the things that
> impressed me very much with Postgres moving from Oracle was the focus on
> usability. Progress indicators would be excellent for a lot of operations.
>
> That said I'm not sure how much I can do here. For a substantial index we
> should expect most of the time will be spent in the tuplesort. It's hard to
> see how to get any sort of progress indicator out of there and as long as we
> can't it's hard to see the point of getting one during the heap scan or any of
> the other i/o operations.

I'd love to have any kind of progress indication for any sorts that
spill to disk, and there's any number of other long-running operations
where progress info would be very welcome. I certainly wouldn't let lack
of a progress indicator for sorts prevent you from adding one. I like
the idea of periodically updating both current_query and the commandline
that ps shows.
--
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jnasby(at)pervasive(dot)com
Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461