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authorDaniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>2024-05-04 12:15:05 +0000
committerDaniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>2024-05-04 12:15:05 +0000
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+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><title>62.3. Index Scanning</title><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="stylesheet.css" /><link rev="made" href="pgsql-docs@lists.postgresql.org" /><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets Vsnapshot" /><link rel="prev" href="index-functions.html" title="62.2. Index Access Method Functions" /><link rel="next" href="index-locking.html" title="62.4. Index Locking Considerations" /></head><body id="docContent" class="container-fluid col-10"><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/transitional" class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="5" align="center">62.3. Index Scanning</th></tr><tr><td width="10%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="index-functions.html" title="62.2. Index Access Method Functions">Prev</a> </td><td width="10%" align="left"><a accesskey="u" href="indexam.html" title="Chapter 62. Index Access Method Interface Definition">Up</a></td><th width="60%" align="center">Chapter 62. Index Access Method Interface Definition</th><td width="10%" align="right"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html" title="PostgreSQL 14.5 Documentation">Home</a></td><td width="10%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="index-locking.html" title="62.4. Index Locking Considerations">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr></hr></div><div class="sect1" id="INDEX-SCANNING"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both">62.3. Index Scanning</h2></div></div></div><p>
+ In an index scan, the index access method is responsible for regurgitating
+ the TIDs of all the tuples it has been told about that match the
+ <em class="firstterm">scan keys</em>. The access method is <span class="emphasis"><em>not</em></span> involved in
+ actually fetching those tuples from the index's parent table, nor in
+ determining whether they pass the scan's visibility test or other
+ conditions.
+ </p><p>
+ A scan key is the internal representation of a <code class="literal">WHERE</code> clause of
+ the form <em class="replaceable"><code>index_key</code></em> <em class="replaceable"><code>operator</code></em>
+ <em class="replaceable"><code>constant</code></em>, where the index key is one of the columns of the
+ index and the operator is one of the members of the operator family
+ associated with that index column. An index scan has zero or more scan
+ keys, which are implicitly ANDed — the returned tuples are expected
+ to satisfy all the indicated conditions.
+ </p><p>
+ The access method can report that the index is <em class="firstterm">lossy</em>, or
+ requires rechecks, for a particular query. This implies that the index
+ scan will return all the entries that pass the scan key, plus possibly
+ additional entries that do not. The core system's index-scan machinery
+ will then apply the index conditions again to the heap tuple to verify
+ whether or not it really should be selected. If the recheck option is not
+ specified, the index scan must return exactly the set of matching entries.
+ </p><p>
+ Note that it is entirely up to the access method to ensure that it
+ correctly finds all and only the entries passing all the given scan keys.
+ Also, the core system will simply hand off all the <code class="literal">WHERE</code>
+ clauses that match the index keys and operator families, without any
+ semantic analysis to determine whether they are redundant or
+ contradictory. As an example, given
+ <code class="literal">WHERE x &gt; 4 AND x &gt; 14</code> where <code class="literal">x</code> is a b-tree
+ indexed column, it is left to the b-tree <code class="function">amrescan</code> function
+ to realize that the first scan key is redundant and can be discarded.
+ The extent of preprocessing needed during <code class="function">amrescan</code> will
+ depend on the extent to which the index access method needs to reduce
+ the scan keys to a <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">normalized</span>”</span> form.
+ </p><p>
+ Some access methods return index entries in a well-defined order, others
+ do not. There are actually two different ways that an access method can
+ support sorted output:
+
+ </p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; "><li class="listitem"><p>
+ Access methods that always return entries in the natural ordering
+ of their data (such as btree) should set
+ <code class="structfield">amcanorder</code> to true.
+ Currently, such access methods must use btree-compatible strategy
+ numbers for their equality and ordering operators.
+ </p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
+ Access methods that support ordering operators should set
+ <code class="structfield">amcanorderbyop</code> to true.
+ This indicates that the index is capable of returning entries in
+ an order satisfying <code class="literal">ORDER BY</code> <em class="replaceable"><code>index_key</code></em>
+ <em class="replaceable"><code>operator</code></em> <em class="replaceable"><code>constant</code></em>. Scan modifiers
+ of that form can be passed to <code class="function">amrescan</code> as described
+ previously.
+ </p></li></ul></div><p>
+ </p><p>
+ The <code class="function">amgettuple</code> function has a <code class="literal">direction</code> argument,
+ which can be either <code class="literal">ForwardScanDirection</code> (the normal case)
+ or <code class="literal">BackwardScanDirection</code>. If the first call after
+ <code class="function">amrescan</code> specifies <code class="literal">BackwardScanDirection</code>, then the
+ set of matching index entries is to be scanned back-to-front rather than in
+ the normal front-to-back direction, so <code class="function">amgettuple</code> must return
+ the last matching tuple in the index, rather than the first one as it
+ normally would. (This will only occur for access
+ methods that set <code class="structfield">amcanorder</code> to true.) After the
+ first call, <code class="function">amgettuple</code> must be prepared to advance the scan in
+ either direction from the most recently returned entry. (But if
+ <code class="structfield">amcanbackward</code> is false, all subsequent
+ calls will have the same direction as the first one.)
+ </p><p>
+ Access methods that support ordered scans must support <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">marking</span>”</span> a
+ position in a scan and later returning to the marked position. The same
+ position might be restored multiple times. However, only one position need
+ be remembered per scan; a new <code class="function">ammarkpos</code> call overrides the
+ previously marked position. An access method that does not support ordered
+ scans need not provide <code class="function">ammarkpos</code> and <code class="function">amrestrpos</code>
+ functions in <code class="structname">IndexAmRoutine</code>; set those pointers to NULL
+ instead.
+ </p><p>
+ Both the scan position and the mark position (if any) must be maintained
+ consistently in the face of concurrent insertions or deletions in the
+ index. It is OK if a freshly-inserted entry is not returned by a scan that
+ would have found the entry if it had existed when the scan started, or for
+ the scan to return such an entry upon rescanning or backing
+ up even though it had not been returned the first time through. Similarly,
+ a concurrent delete might or might not be reflected in the results of a scan.
+ What is important is that insertions or deletions not cause the scan to
+ miss or multiply return entries that were not themselves being inserted or
+ deleted.
+ </p><p>
+ If the index stores the original indexed data values (and not some lossy
+ representation of them), it is useful to
+ support <a class="link" href="indexes-index-only-scans.html" title="11.9. Index-Only Scans and Covering Indexes">index-only scans</a>, in
+ which the index returns the actual data not just the TID of the heap tuple.
+ This will only avoid I/O if the visibility map shows that the TID is on an
+ all-visible page; else the heap tuple must be visited anyway to check
+ MVCC visibility. But that is no concern of the access method's.
+ </p><p>
+ Instead of using <code class="function">amgettuple</code>, an index scan can be done with
+ <code class="function">amgetbitmap</code> to fetch all tuples in one call. This can be
+ noticeably more efficient than <code class="function">amgettuple</code> because it allows
+ avoiding lock/unlock cycles within the access method. In principle
+ <code class="function">amgetbitmap</code> should have the same effects as repeated
+ <code class="function">amgettuple</code> calls, but we impose several restrictions to
+ simplify matters. First of all, <code class="function">amgetbitmap</code> returns all
+ tuples at once and marking or restoring scan positions isn't
+ supported. Secondly, the tuples are returned in a bitmap which doesn't
+ have any specific ordering, which is why <code class="function">amgetbitmap</code> doesn't
+ take a <code class="literal">direction</code> argument. (Ordering operators will never be
+ supplied for such a scan, either.)
+ Also, there is no provision for index-only scans with
+ <code class="function">amgetbitmap</code>, since there is no way to return the contents of
+ index tuples.
+ Finally, <code class="function">amgetbitmap</code>
+ does not guarantee any locking of the returned tuples, with implications
+ spelled out in <a class="xref" href="index-locking.html" title="62.4. Index Locking Considerations">Section 62.4</a>.
+ </p><p>
+ Note that it is permitted for an access method to implement only
+ <code class="function">amgetbitmap</code> and not <code class="function">amgettuple</code>, or vice versa,
+ if its internal implementation is unsuited to one API or the other.
+ </p></div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/transitional" class="navfooter"><hr></hr><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="index-functions.html" title="62.2. Index Access Method Functions">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="indexam.html" title="Chapter 62. Index Access Method Interface Definition">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="index-locking.html" title="62.4. Index Locking Considerations">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">62.2. Index Access Method Functions </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html" title="PostgreSQL 14.5 Documentation">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> 62.4. Index Locking Considerations</td></tr></table></div></body></html> \ No newline at end of file