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If there can certainly be no more than one matching inner row for a given outer row, then the executor can move on to the next outer row as soon as it's found one match; there's no need to continue scanning the inner relation for this outer row. This saves useless scanning in nestloop and hash joins. In merge joins, it offers the opportunity to skip mark/restore processing, because we know we have not advanced past the first possible match for the next outer row. Of course, the devil is in the details: the proof of uniqueness must depend only on joinquals (not otherquals), and if we want to skip mergejoin mark/restore then it must depend only on merge clauses. To avoid adding more planning overhead than absolutely necessary, the present patch errs in the conservative direction: there are cases where inner_unique or skip_mark_restore processing could be used, but it will not do so because it's not sure that the uniqueness proof depended only on "safe" clauses. This could be improved later. David Rowley, reviewed and rather heavily editorialized on by me Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/CAApHDvqF6Sw-TK98bW48TdtFJ+3a7D2mFyZ7++=D-RyPsL76gw@mail.gmail.com
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 want to 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