Re: WAL format

On Mon, 2009-12-07 at 21:28 +0200, Heikki Linnakangas wrote:

> The changes to ReadRecord in the streaming replication patch feel a
> bit awkward, because it has to work around the fact that WAL is
> streamed as a stream of bytes, but ReadRecord works one page at a
> time. I'd like to replace ReadRecord with a simpler ring buffer
> approach, but handling the continuation records makes it a bit hard.

If this was earlier in the release cycle, I'd feel happier.

2.5 months before beta is the wrong time to re-design the crash recovery
data format, especially because its only "a bit awkward". We're bound to
break something unforeseen and not have time to fix it. If you were
telling me "impossible", I'd be all ears.

I feel your pain, but less drastic solutions are always best in such an
important area, at least while we lack automated test harnesses there.

--
Simon Riggs www.2ndQuadrant.com