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3fc6e2d7f5
I've been saying we needed to do this for more than five years, and here it finally is. This patch removes the ever-growing tangle of spaghetti logic that grouping_planner() used to use to try to identify the best plan for post-scan/join query steps. Now, there is (nearly) independent consideration of each execution step, and entirely separate construction of Paths to represent each of the possible ways to do that step. We choose the best Path or set of Paths using the same add_path() logic that's been used inside query_planner() for years. In addition, this patch removes the old restriction that subquery_planner() could return only a single Plan. It now returns a RelOptInfo containing a set of Paths, just as query_planner() does, and the parent query level can use each of those Paths as the basis of a SubqueryScanPath at its level. This allows finding some optimizations that we missed before, wherein a subquery was capable of returning presorted data and thereby avoiding a sort in the parent level, making the overall cost cheaper even though delivering sorted output was not the cheapest plan for the subquery in isolation. (A couple of regression test outputs change in consequence of that. However, there is very little change in visible planner behavior overall, because the point of this patch is not to get immediate planning benefits but to create the infrastructure for future improvements.) There is a great deal left to do here. This patch unblocks a lot of planner work that was basically impractical in the old code structure, such as allowing FDWs to implement remote aggregation, or rewriting plan_set_operations() to allow consideration of multiple implementation orders for set operations. (The latter will likely require a full rewrite of plan_set_operations(); what I've done here is only to fix it to return Paths not Plans.) I have also left unfinished some localized refactoring in createplan.c and planner.c, because it was not necessary to get this patch to a working state. Thanks to Robert Haas, David Rowley, and Amit Kapila for review.
src/backend/nodes/README
Node Structures
===============
Andrew Yu (11/94)
Introduction
------------
The current node structures are plain old C structures. "Inheritance" is
achieved by convention. No additional functions will be generated. Functions
that manipulate node structures reside in this directory.
FILES IN THIS DIRECTORY (src/backend/nodes/)
General-purpose node manipulation functions:
copyfuncs.c - copy a node tree
equalfuncs.c - compare two node trees
outfuncs.c - convert a node tree to text representation
readfuncs.c - convert text representation back to a node tree
makefuncs.c - creator functions for some common node types
nodeFuncs.c - some other general-purpose manipulation functions
Specialized manipulation functions:
bitmapset.c - Bitmapset support
list.c - generic list support
params.c - Param support
tidbitmap.c - TIDBitmap support
value.c - support for Value nodes
FILES IN src/include/nodes/
Node definitions:
nodes.h - define node tags (NodeTag)
primnodes.h - primitive nodes
parsenodes.h - parse tree nodes
plannodes.h - plan tree nodes
relation.h - planner internal nodes
execnodes.h - executor nodes
memnodes.h - memory nodes
pg_list.h - generic list
Steps to Add a Node
-------------------
Suppose you wanna define a node Foo:
1. Add a tag (T_Foo) to the enum NodeTag in nodes.h. (If you insert the
tag in a way that moves the numbers associated with existing tags,
you'll need to recompile the whole tree after doing this. It doesn't
force initdb though, because the numbers never go to disk.)
2. Add the structure definition to the appropriate include/nodes/???.h file.
If you intend to inherit from, say a Plan node, put Plan as the first field
of your struct definition.
3. If you intend to use copyObject, equal, nodeToString or stringToNode,
add an appropriate function to copyfuncs.c, equalfuncs.c, outfuncs.c
and readfuncs.c accordingly. (Except for frequently used nodes, don't
bother writing a creator function in makefuncs.c) The header comments
in those files give general rules for whether you need to add support.
4. Add cases to the functions in nodeFuncs.c as needed. There are many
other places you'll probably also need to teach about your new node
type. Best bet is to grep for references to one or two similar existing
node types to find all the places to touch.
Historical Note
---------------
Prior to the current simple C structure definitions, the Node structures
used a pseudo-inheritance system which automatically generated creator and
accessor functions. Since every node inherited from LispValue, the whole thing
was a mess. Here's a little anecdote:
LispValue definition -- class used to support lisp structures
in C. This is here because we did not want to totally rewrite
planner and executor code which depended on lisp structures when
we ported postgres V1 from lisp to C. -cim 4/23/90