lazy vxid locks, v3

I took another look at v2 of my lazy vxid locks patch and realized
that it was pretty flaky in a couple of different ways. Here's a
version that I think is a bit more robust, but considering the extent
of the revisions, it probably needs another round of review from
someone before I commit it.

Any review appreciated; I would prefer not to have to wait until
October to get this committed, since there is quite a bit of follow-on
work that I would like to do as well. FWIW, the performance
characteristics are basically identical to the previous versions,
AFAICT.

--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

On Wed, 2011-07-20 at 13:41 -0400, Robert Haas wrote:
> I took another look at v2 of my lazy vxid locks patch and realized
> that it was pretty flaky in a couple of different ways. Here's a
> version that I think is a bit more robust, but considering the extent
> of the revisions, it probably needs another round of review from
> someone before I commit it.
>
> Any review appreciated; I would prefer not to have to wait until
> October to get this committed, since there is quite a bit of follow-on
> work that I would like to do as well. FWIW, the performance
> characteristics are basically identical to the previous versions,
> AFAICT.
>

fpLocalTransactionId is redundant with the lxid, and the explanation is
that one that they have different locking semantics. That looks
reasonable, and it avoided the need for the careful ordering while
starting/ending a transaction that was present in v2.

However, it also looks like you're using it for another purpose:

In VirtualXactLockTableCleanup():
/*
* If fpVXIDLock has been cleared without touching fpLocalTransactionId,
* that means someone transferred the lock to the main lock table.
*/
if (!fastpath && LocalTransactionIdIsValid(lxid))

Is the "&& LocalTransactionIdIsValid(lxid)" a guard against calling
VirtualXactLockTableCleanup twice? Can that happen? Or is it just
defensive coding to avoid making an additional assumption?

Regards,
Jeff Davis

PS: In the recent sinval synch patch, you had a typo: "If we haven't
catch up completely". Other than that, it looked good.

On Sun, Jul 31, 2011 at 8:32 PM, Jeff Davis <pgsql(at)j-davis(dot)com> wrote:
> fpLocalTransactionId is redundant with the lxid, and the explanation is
> that one that they have different locking semantics. That looks
> reasonable, and it avoided the need for the careful ordering while
> starting/ending a transaction that was present in v2.

...which I became fairly convinced was in fact insufficiently careful.

> However, it also looks like you're using it for another purpose:
>
> In VirtualXactLockTableCleanup():
> /*
>  * If fpVXIDLock has been cleared without touching fpLocalTransactionId,
>  * that means someone transferred the lock to the main lock table.
>  */
> if (!fastpath && LocalTransactionIdIsValid(lxid))
>
> Is the "&& LocalTransactionIdIsValid(lxid)" a guard against calling
> VirtualXactLockTableCleanup twice? Can that happen? Or is it just
> defensive coding to avoid making an additional assumption?

lxid there is just a local variable storing the value that we
extracted from fpLocalTransactionId while holding the lock. I named
it that way just as a mnemonic for the type of value that it was, not
intending to imply that it was copied from MyProc->lxid.

> PS: In the recent sinval synch patch, you had a typo: "If we haven't
> catch up completely". Other than that, it looked good.

Ah, thanks. Will fix.

--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

On Mon, 2011-08-01 at 08:12 -0400, Robert Haas wrote:
> > Is the "&& LocalTransactionIdIsValid(lxid)" a guard against calling
> > VirtualXactLockTableCleanup twice? Can that happen? Or is it just
> > defensive coding to avoid making an additional assumption?
>
> lxid there is just a local variable storing the value that we
> extracted from fpLocalTransactionId while holding the lock. I named
> it that way just as a mnemonic for the type of value that it was, not
> intending to imply that it was copied from MyProc->lxid.

I know, this is the other purpose of fpLocalTransactionId that I was
talking about. Is it just a guard against calling
VirtualXactLockTableCleanup twice?

Regards,
Jeff Davis

On Mon, Aug 1, 2011 at 11:21 AM, Jeff Davis <pgsql(at)j-davis(dot)com> wrote:
> On Mon, 2011-08-01 at 08:12 -0400, Robert Haas wrote:
>> > Is the "&& LocalTransactionIdIsValid(lxid)" a guard against calling
>> > VirtualXactLockTableCleanup twice? Can that happen? Or is it just
>> > defensive coding to avoid making an additional assumption?
>>
>> lxid there is just a local variable storing the value that we
>> extracted from fpLocalTransactionId while holding the lock.  I named
>> it that way just as a mnemonic for the type of value that it was, not
>> intending to imply that it was copied from MyProc->lxid.
>
> I know, this is the other purpose of fpLocalTransactionId that I was
> talking about. Is it just a guard against calling
> VirtualXactLockTableCleanup twice?

I guess you could look at that way. It just seemed like the obvious
way to write the code: we do LockRefindAndRelease() only if we have a
fast-path lock that someone else has pushed into the main table.

--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

On Mon, 2011-08-01 at 12:12 -0400, Robert Haas wrote:
> I guess you could look at that way. It just seemed like the obvious
> way to write the code: we do LockRefindAndRelease() only if we have a
> fast-path lock that someone else has pushed into the main table.

OK, looks good to me. Marked "ready for committer".

Regards,
Jeff Davis

On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 11:29 AM, Jeff Davis <pgsql(at)j-davis(dot)com> wrote:
> On Mon, 2011-08-01 at 12:12 -0400, Robert Haas wrote:
>> I guess you could look at that way.  It just seemed like the obvious
>> way to write the code: we do LockRefindAndRelease() only if we have a
>> fast-path lock that someone else has pushed into the main table.
>
> OK, looks good to me. Marked "ready for committer".

Thanks for the review!

Committed.

--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company