vacuum_freeze_min_age description validity

Started by PG Bug reporting formover 4 years ago2 messagesdocs
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#1PG Bug reporting form
noreply@postgresql.org

The following documentation comment has been logged on the website:

Page: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/10/routine-vacuuming.html
Description:

Hi All,
I have a doubt about the vacuum_freeze_min_age explanation here;
https://www.postgresql.org/docs/10/routine-vacuuming.html
"vacuum_freeze_min_age controls how old an XID value has to be before rows
bearing that XID will be frozen. Increasing this setting may avoid
unnecessary work if the rows that would otherwise be frozen will soon be
modified again, but decreasing this setting increases the number of
transactions that can elapse before the table must be vacuumed again."

Shouldn't the "Increasing" and "decreasing" words there interchange the
places?
Isn't decreasing value for vacuum_freeze_min_age causes vacuum to freeze
tuples soon due to reduced age? So it reduces number of transactions that
can elapse before the table must be vacuumed.
Please let me know if my understanding is incorrect.

Cheers,
Sanjaya.

#2Laurenz Albe
laurenz.albe@cybertec.at
In reply to: PG Bug reporting form (#1)
Re: vacuum_freeze_min_age description validity

On Fri, 2021-09-17 at 08:54 +0000, PG Doc comments form wrote:

The following documentation comment has been logged on the website:

Page: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/10/routine-vacuuming.html
Description:

Hi All,
I have a doubt about the vacuum_freeze_min_age explanation here;
https://www.postgresql.org/docs/10/routine-vacuuming.html
"vacuum_freeze_min_age controls how old an XID value has to be before rows
bearing that XID will be frozen. Increasing this setting may avoid
unnecessary work if the rows that would otherwise be frozen will soon be
modified again, but decreasing this setting increases the number of
transactions that can elapse before the table must be vacuumed again."

Shouldn't the "Increasing" and "decreasing" words there interchange the
places?
Isn't decreasing value for vacuum_freeze_min_age causes vacuum to freeze
tuples soon due to reduced age? So it reduces number of transactions that
can elapse before the table must be vacuumed.
Please let me know if my understanding is incorrect.

The documentation is correct.

If you increase the parameter, rows will be frozen later, so if the rows get
deleted before they would get frozen, you save the work of freezing them.

If you decrease the parameter, rows get frozen earlier, so the time until
anti-wraparound vacuum is necessary will increase.

Yours,
Laurenz Albe