logical decoding documentation?

Started by Peter Eisentrautalmost 12 years ago3 messages
#1Peter Eisentraut
peter_e@gmx.net

Where, if anywhere, is the current documentation for writing or using a
logical decoding output plugin consumer thingy?

I'm trying to find my way into it ...

src/backend/replication/logical/logical.c, which textually contains most
of the functions that appear to interact with the test_decoding module,
contains this in the header comment:

"""
The idea is that a consumer provides three callbacks, one to read WAL,
one to prepare a data write, and a final one for actually writing since
their implementation depends on the type of consumer. Check
logicalfunc.c for an example implementations of a fairly simple consumer
and a implementation of a WAL reading callback that's suitable for
simpler consumers.
"""

There is no file logicalfunc.c. And test_decoding actually uses five
callbacks, not three.

Is a consumer the same as a decoder?

test_decoding.c contains this:

/* These must be available to pg_dlsym() */
static void pg_decode_startup(LogicalDecodingContext *ctx,
OutputPluginOptions *opt, bool is_init);
...

which is surely wrong.

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#2Andres Freund
andres@2ndquadrant.com
In reply to: Peter Eisentraut (#1)
1 attachment(s)
Re: logical decoding documentation?

Hi,

On 2014-03-11 15:57:39 -0400, Peter Eisentraut wrote:

Where, if anywhere, is the current documentation for writing or using a
logical decoding output plugin consumer thingy?

There's a pending patch for it. The corresponding commit is
http://git.postgresql.org/gitweb/?p=users/andresfreund/postgres.git;a=commit;h=5eeedd55b2d7e53b5fdcdab6a8e74bb666d75bcc

I welcome feedback about it. I've spent a fair bit of time immersed in
this stuff, and I am not really sure anymore what's understandable and
whatnot ;)

It's referencing pg_recvlogical which isn't committed yet (that's the
commit just before), that's why the docs weren't committed with the
feature itself.

src/backend/replication/logical/logical.c, which textually contains most
of the functions that appear to interact with the test_decoding module,
contains this in the header comment:

"""
The idea is that a consumer provides three callbacks, one to read WAL,
one to prepare a data write, and a final one for actually writing since
their implementation depends on the type of consumer. Check
logicalfunc.c for an example implementations of a fairly simple consumer
and a implementation of a WAL reading callback that's suitable for
simpler consumers.
"""

There is no file logicalfunc.c.

Hrmpf: There's a missing 's', it's logicalfuncs.c.

And test_decoding actually uses five callbacks, not three.

The callbacks logicalfuncs.c header comment is talking about adding a
new method to output data. Currently you can stream out changes via
walsender and via the SQL SRFs. But it might be interesting to
e.g. consume the changes in a bgworker, without going through either SQL
or walsender. To do that you need the three callbacks referenced above.

Is a consumer the same as a decoder?

A consumer is just the recipient of the changestream. I.e the walsender
that streams out the changestream, or the SRF that spills the data into
a tuplestore.

I don't think the term "decoder" is used anywhere, but if it is, it'd
be the output plugin.

test_decoding.c contains this:

/* These must be available to pg_dlsym() */
static void pg_decode_startup(LogicalDecodingContext *ctx,
OutputPluginOptions *opt, bool is_init);
...

which is surely wrong.

Hm, these days the comment should be above _PG_init() and
_PG_output_plugin_init(). That changed around several times...

Could you perhaps commit the attached patch fixing the issues you
mentioned?

Greetings,

Andres Freund

--
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PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training & Services

Attachments:

minor-logical-decoding-comment-improvements.patchtext/x-patch; charset=us-asciiDownload
diff --git a/contrib/test_decoding/test_decoding.c b/contrib/test_decoding/test_decoding.c
index e356c7c..31aa012 100644
--- a/contrib/test_decoding/test_decoding.c
+++ b/contrib/test_decoding/test_decoding.c
@@ -33,6 +33,7 @@
 
 PG_MODULE_MAGIC;
 
+/* These must be available to pg_dlsym() */
 extern void		_PG_init(void);
 extern void		_PG_output_plugin_init(OutputPluginCallbacks *cb);
 
@@ -43,7 +44,6 @@ typedef struct
 	bool		include_timestamp;
 } TestDecodingData;
 
-/* These must be available to pg_dlsym() */
 static void pg_decode_startup(LogicalDecodingContext *ctx, OutputPluginOptions *opt,
 							  bool is_init);
 static void pg_decode_shutdown(LogicalDecodingContext *ctx);
diff --git a/src/backend/replication/logical/logical.c b/src/backend/replication/logical/logical.c
index 13a22d4..04e407a 100644
--- a/src/backend/replication/logical/logical.c
+++ b/src/backend/replication/logical/logical.c
@@ -12,14 +12,17 @@
  *    together provide logical decoding, primarily by providing so
  *    called LogicalDecodingContexts. The goal is to encapsulate most of the
  *    internal complexity for consumers of logical decoding, so they can
- *    create and consume a changestream with a low amount of code.
+ *    create and consume a changestream with a low amount of code. Builtin
+ *    consumers are the walsender and SQL SRF interface, but it's possible to
+ *    add further ones without changing core code, e.g. to consume changes in
+ *    a bgworker.
  *
  *    The idea is that a consumer provides three callbacks, one to read WAL,
  *    one to prepare a data write, and a final one for actually writing since
  *    their implementation depends on the type of consumer.  Check
- *    logicalfunc.c for an example implementations of a fairly simple consumer
+ *    logicalfuncs.c for an example implementation of a fairly simple consumer
  *    and a implementation of a WAL reading callback that's suitable for
- *    simpler consumers.
+ *    simple consumers.
  *-------------------------------------------------------------------------
  */
 
#3Robert Haas
robertmhaas@gmail.com
In reply to: Andres Freund (#2)
Re: logical decoding documentation?

On Tue, Mar 11, 2014 at 4:16 PM, Andres Freund <andres@2ndquadrant.com> wrote:

Could you perhaps commit the attached patch fixing the issues you
mentioned?

I committed this.

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

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