postgresql/src/backend/nodes
Tom Lane 5b7b5518d0 Revise parameterized-path mechanism to fix assorted issues.
This patch adjusts the treatment of parameterized paths so that all paths
with the same parameterization (same set of required outer rels) for the
same relation will have the same rowcount estimate.  We cache the rowcount
estimates to ensure that property, and hopefully save a few cycles too.
Doing this makes it practical for add_path_precheck to operate without
a rowcount estimate: it need only assume that paths with different
parameterizations never dominate each other, which is close enough to
true anyway for coarse filtering, because normally a more-parameterized
path should yield fewer rows thanks to having more join clauses to apply.

In add_path, we do the full nine yards of comparing rowcount estimates
along with everything else, so that we can discard parameterized paths that
don't actually have an advantage.  This fixes some issues I'd found with
add_path rejecting parameterized paths on the grounds that they were more
expensive than not-parameterized ones, even though they yielded many fewer
rows and hence would be cheaper once subsequent joining was considered.

To make the same-rowcounts assumption valid, we have to require that any
parameterized path enforce *all* join clauses that could be obtained from
the particular set of outer rels, even if not all of them are useful for
indexing.  This is required at both base scans and joins.  It's a good
thing anyway since the net impact is that join quals are checked at the
lowest practical level in the join tree.  Hence, discard the original
rather ad-hoc mechanism for choosing parameterization joinquals, and build
a better one that has a more principled rule for when clauses can be moved.
The original rule was actually buggy anyway for lack of knowledge about
which relations are part of an outer join's outer side; getting this right
requires adding an outer_relids field to RestrictInfo.
2012-04-19 15:53:47 -04:00
..
bitmapset.c Use parameterized paths to generate inner indexscans more flexibly. 2012-01-27 19:26:38 -05:00
copyfuncs.c Revise parameterized-path mechanism to fix assorted issues. 2012-04-19 15:53:47 -04:00
equalfuncs.c Revise parameterized-path mechanism to fix assorted issues. 2012-04-19 15:53:47 -04:00
list.c Update copyright notices for year 2012. 2012-01-01 18:01:58 -05:00
Makefile Remove cvs keywords from all files. 2010-09-20 22:08:53 +02:00
makefuncs.c Update copyright notices for year 2012. 2012-01-01 18:01:58 -05:00
nodeFuncs.c Code review for protransform patches. 2012-03-23 17:29:57 -04:00
nodes.c Update copyright notices for year 2012. 2012-01-01 18:01:58 -05:00
outfuncs.c Revise parameterized-path mechanism to fix assorted issues. 2012-04-19 15:53:47 -04:00
params.c Update copyright notices for year 2012. 2012-01-01 18:01:58 -05:00
print.c Update copyright notices for year 2012. 2012-01-01 18:01:58 -05:00
read.c Update copyright notices for year 2012. 2012-01-01 18:01:58 -05:00
readfuncs.c Add some infrastructure for contrib/pg_stat_statements. 2012-03-27 15:17:40 -04:00
README Remove useless whitespace at end of lines 2010-11-23 22:34:55 +02:00
tidbitmap.c Update copyright notices for year 2012. 2012-01-01 18:01:58 -05:00
value.c Update copyright notices for year 2012. 2012-01-01 18:01:58 -05:00

src/backend/nodes/README

Node Structures
===============

Andrew Yu (11/94)

Introduction
------------

The current node structures are plain old C structures. "Inheritance" is
achieved by convention. No additional functions will be generated. Functions
that manipulate node structures reside in this directory.


FILES IN THIS DIRECTORY (src/backend/nodes/)

    General-purpose node manipulation functions:
	copyfuncs.c	- copy a node tree
	equalfuncs.c	- compare two node trees
	outfuncs.c	- convert a node tree to text representation
	readfuncs.c	- convert text representation back to a node tree
	makefuncs.c	- creator functions for some common node types
	nodeFuncs.c	- some other general-purpose manipulation functions

    Specialized manipulation functions:
	bitmapset.c	- Bitmapset support
	list.c		- generic list support
	params.c	- Param support
	tidbitmap.c	- TIDBitmap support
	value.c		- support for Value nodes

FILES IN src/include/nodes/

    Node definitions:
	nodes.h		- define node tags (NodeTag)
	primnodes.h	- primitive nodes
	parsenodes.h	- parse tree nodes
	plannodes.h	- plan tree nodes
	relation.h	- planner internal nodes
	execnodes.h	- executor nodes
	memnodes.h	- memory nodes
	pg_list.h	- generic list


Steps to Add a Node
-------------------

Suppose you wanna define a node Foo:

1. Add a tag (T_Foo) to the enum NodeTag in nodes.h.  (If you insert the
   tag in a way that moves the numbers associated with existing tags,
   you'll need to recompile the whole tree after doing this.  It doesn't
   force initdb though, because the numbers never go to disk.)
2. Add the structure definition to the appropriate include/nodes/???.h file.
   If you intend to inherit from, say a Plan node, put Plan as the first field
   of your struct definition.
3. If you intend to use copyObject, equal, nodeToString or stringToNode,
   add an appropriate function to copyfuncs.c, equalfuncs.c, outfuncs.c
   and readfuncs.c accordingly.  (Except for frequently used nodes, don't
   bother writing a creator function in makefuncs.c)  The header comments
   in those files give general rules for whether you need to add support.
4. Add cases to the functions in nodeFuncs.c as needed.  There are many
   other places you'll probably also need to teach about your new node
   type.  Best bet is to grep for references to one or two similar existing
   node types to find all the places to touch.


Historical Note
---------------

Prior to the current simple C structure definitions, the Node structures
used a pseudo-inheritance system which automatically generated creator and
accessor functions. Since every node inherited from LispValue, the whole thing
was a mess. Here's a little anecdote:

    LispValue definition -- class used to support lisp structures
    in C.  This is here because we did not want to totally rewrite
    planner and executor code which depended on lisp structures when
    we ported postgres V1 from lisp to C. -cim 4/23/90