Re: Standardizing how pg_waldump presents recovery conflict XID cutoffs

Hi,

On 2022-11-16 14:14:30 -0800, Peter Geoghegan wrote:
> /*
> - * If 'tuple' contains any visible XID greater than latestRemovedXid,
> - * ratchet forwards latestRemovedXid to the greatest one found.
> - * This is used as the basis for generating Hot Standby conflicts, so
> - * if a tuple was never visible then removing it should not conflict
> - * with queries.
> + * Maintain snapshotConflictHorizon for caller by ratcheting forward its value
> + * using any committed XIDs contained in 'tuple', an obsolescent heap tuple
> + * that caller is in the process of physically removing via pruning.
> + * (Also supports generating index deletion snapshotConflictHorizon values.)

The "(also...) formulation seems a bit odd. How about "an obsolescent heap
tuple that the caller is physically removing, e.g. via HOT pruning or index
deletion." or such?

> + * snapshotConflictHorizon format values are how all hot Standby conflicts are
> + * generated by REDO routines (at least wherever a granular cutoff is used).

Not quite parsing for me.

> + * Caller must initialize its value to InvalidTransactionId, which is generally
> + * interpreted as "definitely no need for a recovery conflict".
> + *
> + * Final value must reflect all heap tuples that caller will physically remove
> + * via the ongoing pruning operation. ResolveRecoveryConflictWithSnapshot() is
> + * passed the final value (taken from caller's WAL record) by a REDO routine.

> + /*
> + * It's quite possible that final snapshotConflictHorizon value will be
> + * invalid in final WAL record, indicating that we definitely don't need to
> + * generate a conflict
> + */

*the final

Isn't this already described in the header?

> @@ -3337,12 +3337,17 @@ GetCurrentVirtualXIDs(TransactionId limitXmin, bool excludeXmin0,
> * GetConflictingVirtualXIDs -- returns an array of currently active VXIDs.
> *
> * Usage is limited to conflict resolution during recovery on standby servers.
> - * limitXmin is supplied as either latestRemovedXid, or InvalidTransactionId
> - * in cases where we cannot accurately determine a value for latestRemovedXid.
> + * limitXmin is supplied as either a snapshotConflictHorizon format XID, or as
> + * InvalidTransactionId in cases where caller cannot accurately determine a
> + * safe snapshotConflictHorizon value.
> *
> * If limitXmin is InvalidTransactionId then we want to kill everybody,
> * so we're not worried if they have a snapshot or not, nor does it really
> - * matter what type of lock we hold.
> + * matter what type of lock we hold. Caller must avoid calling here with
> + * snapshotConflictHorizon format XIDs that were set to InvalidTransactionId

What are "snapshotConflictHorizon format XIDs"? I guess you mean format in the
sense of having the semantics of snapshotConflictHorizon?

Greetings,

Andres Freund