pg_total_relation_size accuracy guarantee

Started by Nikitaover 8 years ago3 messagesgeneral
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#1Nikita
jne100@gmail.com

Hello, I'am currently trying to implement some simple disc space limitation
mechanism for my database. Database is partition based and insert-only - I
insert new rows to the current partition and drop oldest partition when
disc space limit exceeded.

Algorithm is quite simple and it seems it works but I must ensure two
assumptions to avoid extra VACUUM/ANALYZE calls:

1. pg_total_relation_size return predictable approximately correct table
size (apart from some preallocation) without subsequent
VACUUM/ANALYZE/anything call as long as I don't DELETE/UPDATE rows;

2. DROP/TRUNCATE table reclaim disc space without subsequent VACUUM;

These assumptions are correct? Is it fixed in doc if so?

#2Laurenz Albe
laurenz.albe@cybertec.at
In reply to: Nikita (#1)
Re: pg_total_relation_size accuracy guarantee

Nikita wrote:

1. pg_total_relation_size return predictable approximately correct table size (apart from some preallocation) without subsequent VACUUM/ANALYZE/anything call as long as I don't DELETE/UPDATE rows;

2. DROP/TRUNCATE table reclaim disc space without subsequent VACUUM;

These assumptions are correct? Is it fixed in doc if so?

Sort of, if you consider the source as documentation.

Ad pg_total_relation_size:

See the function definition in backend/utils/adt/dbsize.c and
the functions that it calls, especially "calculate_relation_size":

PostgreSQL uses the stat(2) system call to determine the actual
size of the files on disk.

Ad TRUNCATE (from backend/commands/tablecmds.c):

/*
* Need the full transaction-safe pushups.
*
* Create a new empty storage file for the relation, and assign it
* as the relfilenode value. The old storage file is scheduled for
* deletion at commit.
*/

Yours,
Laurenz Albe

#3Nikita
jne100@gmail.com
In reply to: Laurenz Albe (#2)
Re: pg_total_relation_size accuracy guarantee

Source is good enough in my case and I planned to grep it anyway, so thanks
for saving my time!

2017-11-24 10:15 GMT+03:00 Laurenz Albe <laurenz.albe@cybertec.at>:

Show quoted text

Nikita wrote:

1. pg_total_relation_size return predictable approximately correct table

size (apart from some preallocation) without subsequent
VACUUM/ANALYZE/anything call as long as I don't DELETE/UPDATE rows;

2. DROP/TRUNCATE table reclaim disc space without subsequent VACUUM;

These assumptions are correct? Is it fixed in doc if so?

Sort of, if you consider the source as documentation.

Ad pg_total_relation_size:

See the function definition in backend/utils/adt/dbsize.c and
the functions that it calls, especially "calculate_relation_size":

PostgreSQL uses the stat(2) system call to determine the actual
size of the files on disk.

Ad TRUNCATE (from backend/commands/tablecmds.c):

/*
* Need the full transaction-safe pushups.
*
* Create a new empty storage file for the relation, and assign it
* as the relfilenode value. The old storage file is scheduled for
* deletion at commit.
*/

Yours,
Laurenz Albe