Re: Measuring relation free space

On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 04:56:24PM -0300, Alvaro Herrera wrote:
> Excerpts from Noah Misch's message of vie ene 20 22:33:30 -0300 2012:
> > pgstattuple() figures the free_percent by adding up all space available to
> > hold tuples and dividing that by the simple size of the relation. Non-leaf
> > pages and the meta page get identical treatment: both never hold tuples, so
> > they do not contribute to the free space.
>
> Hm. Leaf pages hold as much tuples as non-leaf pages, no? I mean
> for each page element there's a value and a CTID. In non-leaf those
> CTIDs point to other index pages, one level down the tree; in leaf pages
> they point to the heap.

That distinction seemed important when I sent my last message, but now I agree
that it's largely irrelevant for free space purposes. If someone feels like
doing it, +1 for making pgstattuple() count non-leaf free space.

Thanks,
nm