2018-02-25 18:51 GMT+01:00 Lætitia Avrot <laetitia.av...@gmail.com>:
> Hi all, > > For most beginners (and even a lot of advanced users) there is a strong > confusion between simple VACUUM and VACUUM FULL. They think "full" is > simply an option to the maintenance operation vacuum while it's not. It's a > complete different operation. > > I have a hard time explaining it when I teach PostgreSQL Administration > (even if I stress the matter) and I constantly meet customer that are wrong > about it. > > I think that the way we name this two operations is not helping them. I > had to work with SQL Server some years ago and they use the word "SHRINK" > to do something similar to "VACUUM FULL". I don't know if it's the best > option, I think others can be found (COMPACT, DEFRAGMENT...) > > Of course, for compatibility reasons, VACUUM FULL should always be > available, but I think an alias that is less confusing for people could be > a good thing. > > What do you think ? > Although VACUUM and VACUUM FULL is different, then result is same (depends on detail level) - the data files are optimized for other processing. You should to see a VACUUM like family of commands that does some data files optimizations. VACUUM, VACUUM FULL, VACUUM FREEZE, VACUUM ANALYZE, ... Personally I don't think so we need to implement new synonym command for this case. Why you you cannot to say your students - "VACUUM FULL is like SHRINK in SQL Server"? Regards Pavel > > Cheers, > > Lætitia >