Re: Proposal: "query_work_mem" GUC, to distribute working memory to the query's individual operators

On Tue, 2025-02-11 at 10:39 -0800, James Hunter wrote:
> * The Path would store "nbytes" (= the optimizer's estimate of how
> much working memory a given Path will use), to allow for future
> optimizer logic to consider memory usage when choosing the best Path.
>
> * The Plan would store a copy of "nbytes," along with "work_mem," and
> the executor would enforce work_mem. A "(work_mem on)" option to the
> "EXPLAIN" command would display both "nbytes" and "work_mem", per
> Plan
> node.

Storing work_mem in each Plan node, and using that to enforce the
memory limit (rather than using the GUC directly), seems
uncontroversial to me. I'd suggest a standalone patch.

Storing the optimizer's estimate of the memory wanted also sounds like
a good idea. Let's pick a better name than "nbytes" though; maybe
"requested_mem" or something? This change would make it a lot easier
for an extension to adjust the per-node-work_mem, and also seems like
good infrastructure for anything we build into the planner later. I
suggest a standalone patch for this, as well.

Can you write a useful extension with just the above two core patches?

Regards,
Jeff Davis