subqueries into the same thing you'd have gotten from IN (except always with
unknownEqFalse = true, so as to get the proper semantics for an EXISTS).
I believe this fixes the last case within CVS HEAD in which an EXISTS could
give worse performance than an equivalent IN subquery.
The tricky part of this is that if the upper query probes the EXISTS for only
a few rows, the hashing implementation can actually be worse than the default,
and therefore we need to make a cost-based decision about which way to use.
But at the time when the planner generates plans for subqueries, it doesn't
really know how many times the subquery will be executed. The least invasive
solution seems to be to generate both plans and postpone the choice until
execution. Therefore, in a query that has been optimized this way, EXPLAIN
will show two subplans for the EXISTS, of which only one will actually get
executed.
There is a lot more that could be done based on this infrastructure: in
particular it's interesting to consider switching to the hash plan if we start
out using the non-hashed plan but find a lot more upper rows going by than we
expected. I have therefore left some minor inefficiencies in place, such as
initializing both subplans even though we will currently only use one.
parent query's EState. Now that there's a single flat rangetable for both
the main plan and subplans, there's no need anymore for a separate EState,
and removing it allows cleaning up some crufty code in nodeSubplan.c and
nodeSubqueryscan.c. Should be a tad faster too, although any difference
will probably be hard to measure. This is the last bit of subsidiary
mop-up work from changing to a flat rangetable.
bits indicating which optional capabilities can actually be exercised
at runtime. This will allow Sort and Material nodes, and perhaps later
other nodes, to avoid unnecessary overhead in common cases.
This commit just adds the infrastructure and arranges to pass the correct
flag values down to plan nodes; none of the actual optimizations are here
yet. I'm committing this separately in case anyone wants to measure the
added overhead. (It should be negligible.)
Simon Riggs and Tom Lane
directly to the appropriate per-node execution function, using a function
pointer stored by ExecInitExpr. This speeds things up by eliminating one
level of function call. The function-pointer technique also enables further
small improvements such as only making one-time tests once (and then
changing the function pointer). Overall this seems to gain about 10%
on evaluation of simple expressions, which isn't earthshaking but seems
a worthwhile gain for a relatively small hack. Per recent discussion
on pghackers.
in the planned representation of a subplan at all any more, only SubPlan.
This means subselect.c doesn't scribble on its input anymore, which seems
like a good thing; and there are no longer three different possible
interpretations of a SubLink. Simplify node naming and improve comments
in primnodes.h. No change to stored rules, though.
execution state trees, and ExecEvalExpr takes an expression state tree
not an expression plan tree. The plan tree is now read-only as far as
the executor is concerned. Next step is to begin actually exploiting
this property.
so that all executable expression nodes inherit from a common supertype
Expr. This is somewhat of an exercise in code purity rather than any
real functional advance, but getting rid of the extra Oper or Func node
formerly used in each operator or function call should provide at least
a little space and speed improvement.
initdb forced by changes in stored-rules representation.
to plan nodes, not vice-versa. All executor state nodes now inherit from
struct PlanState. Copying of plan trees has been simplified by not
storing a list of SubPlans in Plan nodes (eliminating duplicate links).
The executor still needs such a list, but it can build it during
ExecutorStart since it has to scan the plan tree anyway.
No initdb forced since no stored-on-disk structures changed, but you
will need a full recompile because of node-numbering changes.
memory contexts. Currently, only leaks in expressions executed as
quals or projections are handled. Clean up some old dead cruft in
executor while at it --- unused fields in state nodes, that sort of thing.
nulls with non-nulls using proper three-valued boolean logic. Also clean
up ExecQual to make it clearer that ExecQual *does* follow the SQL spec
for boolean nulls. See '[BUGS] (null) != (null)' thread around 10/26/99
for more detail.
Bruce Momjian