Re: IMMUTABLE?

[Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>]

David Wheeler <david(at)kineticode(dot)com> writes:
> But seriously, the documentation says (as if I need to tell you, but  
> I was reading it again to make sure that I'm not insane):

>> IMMUTABLE indicates that the function always returns the same  
>> result when given the same argument values; that is, it does not do  
>> database lookups or otherwise use information not directly present  
>> in its argument list. If this option is given, any call of the  
>> function with all-constant arguments can be immediately replaced  
>> with the function value.

Sure.  As I read it, that's talking about a static transformation:
planner sees 2 + 2 (or if you prefer, int4pl(2,2)), planner runs the
function and replaces the expression with 4.  Nothing there about
memoization.

It's true that the system *could* memoize (or in our more usual
parlance, cache function values) given the assumptions embodied in
IMMUTABLE.  But we don't, and I don't see any statement in the docs
that promises that we do.  For 99% of the functions that the planner
deals with, memoization would be seriously counterproductive because
the function evaluation cost is comparable to if not less than the
lookup cost in a memo table.  (int4pl is a good case in point.)

			regards, tom lane