I attach a version of my toast-slicing patch, against current CVS

(current as of a few hours ago.)

This patch:

1. Adds PG_GETARG_xxx_P_SLICE() macros and associated support routines.

2. Adds routines in src/backend/access/tuptoaster.c for fetching only
necessary chunks of a toasted value. (Modelled on latest changes to
assume chunks are returned in order).

3. Amends text_substr and bytea_substr to use new methods. It now
handles multibyte cases -and should still lead to a performance
improvement in the multibyte case where the substring is near the
beginning of the string.

4. Added new command: ALTER TABLE tabname ALTER COLUMN colname SET
STORAGE {PLAIN | EXTERNAL | EXTENDED | MAIN} to parser and documented in
alter-table.sgml. (NB I used ColId as the item type for the storage
mode string, rather than a new production - I hope this makes sense!).
All this does is sets attstorage for the specified column.

4. AlterTableAlterColumnStatistics is now AlterTableAlterColumnFlags and
handles both statistics and storage (it uses the subtype code to
distinguish). The previous version of my patch also re-arranged other
code in backend/commands/command.c but I have dropped that from this
patch.(I plan to return to it separately).

5. Documented new macros (and also the PG_GETARG_xxx_P_COPY macros) in
xfunc.sgml. ref/alter_table.sgml also contains documentation for ALTER
COLUMN SET STORAGE.

John Gray

doc/src/sgml/ref/alter_table.sgml

@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 <!--
-$Header: /cvsroot/pgsql/doc/src/sgml/ref/alter_table.sgml,v 1.38 2002/02/17 13:29:00 momjian Exp $
+$Header: /cvsroot/pgsql/doc/src/sgml/ref/alter_table.sgml,v 1.39 2002/03/05 05:33:04 momjian Exp $
 PostgreSQL documentation
 -->
 
@@ -30,6 +30,8 @@ ALTER TABLE [ ONLY ] <replaceable class="PARAMETER">table</replaceable> [ * ]
     class="PARAMETER">value</replaceable> | DROP DEFAULT }
 ALTER TABLE [ ONLY ] <replaceable class="PARAMETER">table</replaceable> [ * ]
     ALTER [ COLUMN ] <replaceable class="PARAMETER">column</replaceable> SET STATISTICS <replaceable class="PARAMETER">integer</replaceable>
+ALTER TABLE [ ONLY ] <replaceable class="PARAMETER">table</replaceable> [ * ]
+    ALTER [ COLUMN ] <replaceable class="PARAMETER">column</replaceable> SET STORAGE {PLAIN | EXTERNAL | EXTENDED | MAIN}
 ALTER TABLE [ ONLY ] <replaceable class="PARAMETER">table</replaceable> [ * ]
     RENAME [ COLUMN ] <replaceable class="PARAMETER">column</replaceable> TO <replaceable
     class="PARAMETER">newcolumn</replaceable>
@@ -169,6 +171,17 @@ ALTER TABLE <replaceable class="PARAMETER">table</replaceable>
    The <literal>ALTER COLUMN SET STATISTICS</literal> form allows you to
    set the statistics-gathering target for subsequent
    <xref linkend="sql-analyze" endterm="sql-analyze-title"> operations.
+   The <literal>ALTER COLUMN SET STORAGE</literal> form allows the
+   column storage mode to be set. This controls whether this column is
+   held inline or in a supplementary table, and whether the data
+   should be compressed or not. <literal>PLAIN</literal> must be used
+   for fixed-length values such as <literal>INTEGER</literal> and is
+   inline, uncompressed. <literal>MAIN</literal> is for inline,
+   compressible data. <literal>EXTERNAL</literal> is for external,
+   uncompressed data and <literal>EXTENDED</literal> is for external,
+   compressed data. The use of <literal>EXTERNAL</literal> will make
+   substring operations on a column faster, at the penalty of
+   increased storage space.
    The <literal>RENAME</literal> clause causes the name of a table,
    column, index, or sequence to change without changing any of the
    data. The data will remain of the same type and size after the

doc/src/sgml/xfunc.sgml

@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 <!--
-$Header: /cvsroot/pgsql/doc/src/sgml/xfunc.sgml,v 1.47 2002/01/20 22:19:56 petere Exp $
+$Header: /cvsroot/pgsql/doc/src/sgml/xfunc.sgml,v 1.48 2002/03/05 05:33:00 momjian Exp $
 -->
 
  <chapter id="xfunc">
@@ -1296,6 +1296,35 @@ concat_text(PG_FUNCTION_ARGS)
      this works in both strict and nonstrict functions.
     </para>
 
+    <para>
+    Other options provided in the new-style interface are two
+     variants of the
+     <function>PG_GETARG_<replaceable>xxx</replaceable>()</function>
+     macros. The first of these,
+     <function>PG_GETARG_<replaceable>xxx</replaceable>_COPY()</function>
+     guarantees to return a copy of the specified parameter which is
+     safe for writing into. (The normal macros will sometimes return a
+     pointer to the value which must not be written to. Using the
+     <function>PG_GETARG_<replaceable>xxx</replaceable>_COPY()</function>
+     macros guarantees a writable result.)
+    </para>
+
+    <para>
+    The second variant consists of the
+    <function>PG_GETARG_<replaceable>xxx</replaceable>_SLICE()</function>
+    macros which take three parameters. The first is the number of the
+    parameter (as above). The second and third are the offset and
+    length of the segment to be returned. Offsets are counted from
+    zero, and a negative length requests that the remainder of the
+    value be returned. These routines provide more efficient access to
+    parts of large values in the case where they have storage type
+    "external". (The storage type of a column can be specified using
+    <command>ALTER TABLE <repaceable>tablename</replaceable> ALTER
+    COLUMN <replaceable>colname</replaceable> SET STORAGE
+    <replaceable>storagetype</replaceable>. Storage type is one of
+    plain, external, extended or main.)
+    </para>
+
     <para>
      The version-1 function call conventions make it possible to
      return <quote>set</quote> results and implement trigger functions and