Re: Create and drop temp table in 8.3.4

From: "Kevin Grittner" <Kevin(dot)Grittner(at)wicourts(dot)gov>
To: "Scott Carey" <scott(at)richrelevance(dot)com>
Cc: <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com>,<pgsql-performance(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Re: Create and drop temp table in 8.3.4
Date: 2008-11-06 21:49:59
Message-ID: 49131226.EE98.0025.0@wicourts.gov
Views: Raw Message | Whole Thread | Download mbox | Resend email
Thread:
Lists: pgsql-performance

>>> "Scott Carey" <scott(at)richrelevance(dot)com> wrote:
> Note that Write Barriers can be very important for data integrity
when power
> loss or hardware failure are a concern. Only disable them if you
know the
> consequences are mitigated by other factors (such as a BBU + db using
the
> WAL log with sync writes), or if you accept the additional risk to
data
> loss.

For those using xfs, this link may be useful:

http://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/faq.html#wcache

> On Temp Tables:
> I am a bit ignorant on the temp table relationship to file creation
-- it
> makes no sense to me at all that a file would even be created for a
temp
> table unless it spills out of RAM or is committed. Inside of a
transaction,
> shouldn't they be purely in-memory if there is space? Is there any
way to
> prevent the file creation? This seems like a total waste of time for
many
> temp table use cases, and explains why they were so slow in some
exploratory
> testing we did a few months ago.

As I learned today, creating a temporary table in PostgreSQL can
easily create four files and do dozens of updates to system tables;
that's all before you start actually inserting any data into the
temporary table.

-Kevin

In response to

Browse pgsql-performance by date

  From Date Subject
Next Message Scott Marlowe 2008-11-06 22:05:21 Re: Create and drop temp table in 8.3.4
Previous Message Scott Carey 2008-11-06 21:05:06 Re: Create and drop temp table in 8.3.4