Re: parallel pg_restore - WIP patch

Joshua Drake wrote:
> On Fri, 26 Sep 2008 17:10:44 -0400
> Andrew Dunstan <andrew(at)dunslane(dot)net> wrote:
>
>
>> Yes, there are several funny things going on, including some stuff
>> with dependencies. I'll have a new patch tomorrow with luck. Thanks
>> for testing.
>>
>
> O.k. I took at look at the patch itself and although I don't understand
> all of it there were a couple of red flags to me:
>
> + if (ropt->create)
> + die_horribly(AH,modulename,
> + "parallel restore is
> incompatible with --create\n");
> +
>
> This seems like an odd limitation. In my mind, the schema would not be
> restored in parallel. The schema before data would restore as a single
> thread. Even the largest schemas would only take minutes (if that).
> Thus something like --create should never be a problem.
>

Originally I had everything restoring in parallel. Now I am in fact (as
the patch should have showed you) restoring the first part in a single
thread like you say. Thus I probably can relax that restriction. I will
look and see.

> I also noticed you check if we have zlib? Is it even possible to use
> the c format without it? (that would be new to me).
>
> I noticed this line:
>
>
> + while((next_work_item = get_next_work_item(AH)) != NULL)
> + {
> + /* XXX need to improve this test in case there is no
> table data */
> + /* need to test for indexes, FKs, PK, Unique, etc */
> + if(strcmp(next_work_item->desc,"TABLE DATA") == 0)
> + break;
> + (void) _restore_one_te(AH, next_work_item, ropt,
> false);
> +
> + next_work_item->prestored = true;
> +
> + _reduce_dependencies(AH,next_work_item);
> + }
>
>
> Intead of the TABLE DATA compare, perhaps it makes sense to back patch
> pg_dump to have a line delimiter in the TOC? That way even if there is
> no TABLE DATA there would be a delimiter that says:
>
> --- BEGIN TABLE DATA
> --- END TABLE DATA
>
> Thus if nothing is there... nothing is there?
>

The TOC isn't stored as a text file. So we'll need to look by entry
tags. It's no big deal - there aren't a huge number.

> + /* delay just long enough betweek forks to
> give the catalog some
> + * breathing space. Without this sleep I got
> + * "tuple concurrently updated" errors.
> + */
> + pg_usleep(500000);
> + continue; /* in case the slots are not yet
> full */
> + }
>
> Could that be solved with a lock instead? Once the lock is released....
>

That sleep is now gone.

> Anyway... just some thoughts. I apologize if I misunderstood the patch.
>
>
>

No problem. Thanks for looking.

cheers

andrew