Re: Does VACUUM reorder tables on clustered indices

[Bruce Momjian <pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us>]

Tom, has this bug been addressed or documented?

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Tom Lane wrote:
> Andrew Sullivan <ajs(at)crankycanuck(dot)ca> writes:
> > On Sun, Dec 18, 2005 at 10:08:22PM -0500, Tom Lane wrote:
> >> Just for the record, that behavior is seriously broken: it violates
> >> MVCC if any of the deleted tuples are still visible to anyone else.
> 
> > Does it remove tuples that VACUUM FULL wouldn't?
> 
> Yes.  CLUSTER works on SnapshotNow, so it will remove committed-dead
> tuples even if there are still open transactions that could see them.
> Of course, said transactions couldn't be actively using the table
> while the CLUSTER runs, because it takes an exclusive table lock.
> But they *could* look at it afterwards.  Offhand I think you'd only
> be likely to notice the difference if the open transactions were
> SERIALIZABLE --- in READ COMMITTED mode, by the time they could look
> at the clustered table, they'd likely be using a snapshot that postdates
> the DELETE.
> 
> [ experiments a bit... ]  Hmm.  Actually, it's far worse than I
> thought.  It looks like CLUSTER puts the tuples into the new table with
> its own xid, which means that concurrent serializable transactions will
> see the new table as completely empty!
> 
> << session 1 >>
> 
> regression=# select * from int4_tbl;
>      f1
> -------------
>            0
>       123456
>      -123456
>   2147483647
>  -2147483647
> (5 rows)
> 
> regression=# create index fooi on int4_tbl(f1);
> CREATE INDEX
> regression=# begin isolation level serializable;
> BEGIN
> regression=# select 2+2; -- establish transaction snapshot
>  ?column?
> ----------
>         4
> (1 row)
> 
> << session 2 >>
> 
> regression=# delete from int4_tbl where f1 = -123456;
> DELETE 1
> regression=# cluster fooi on int4_tbl;
> CLUSTER
> 
> << back to session 1 >>
> 
> regression=# select * from int4_tbl;
>  f1
> ----
> (0 rows)
> 
> regression=# commit;
> COMMIT
> regression=# select * from int4_tbl;
>      f1
> -------------
>  -2147483647
>            0
>       123456
>   2147483647
> (4 rows)
> 
> 
> 			regards, tom lane
> 

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