Re: executor relation handling

Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> On Sat, Oct 6, 2018 at 2:59 PM Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
>> The reasons why we need locks on tables not physically accessed by the
>> query are (a) to ensure that we've blocked, or received sinval messages
>> for, any DDL related to views or partition parent tables, in case that
>> would invalidate the plan; (b) to allow firing triggers safely, in
>> the case of partition parent tables. Neither of these issues apply to
>> a parallel worker -- the plan is already frozen before it can ever
>> start, and it isn't going to be firing any triggers either.

> That last part could *easily* change in a future release. We've
> already started to allow CTAS with parallel query, and there have
> already been multiple people wanting to allow more. It would be a
> shame if we threw up additional obstacles in the way of that...

I hardly think that this is the most serious issue in the way of
doing non-read-only things in parallel workers.

In any case, a parallel worker would surely have to open any
relations it is going to fire triggers for. If it gets the correct
lock when it does that, all is well. If not, the Assert in
relation_open will complain.

regards, tom lane