Simon Riggs <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > I notice that Neil's patch regarding reducing the number of memory > allocations during aggregation operations isn't mentioned. It was > originally discussed in 8.0beta (2-3?) time.
> What happened there? > - patch not committed in the end > - committed but not mentioned, as a dropped item > - committed but not mentioned, since part of a larger patch Are you speaking of these patches? 2005-04-06 19:56 neilc * src/backend/utils/adt/: float.c, numeric.c: Apply the "nodeAgg" optimization to more of the builtin transition functions. This patch optimizes int2_sum(), int4_sum(), float4_accum() and float8_accum() to avoid needing to copy the transition function's state for each input tuple of the aggregate. In an extreme case (e.g. SELECT sum(int2_col) FROM table where table has a single column), it improves performance by about 20%. For more complex queries or tables with wider rows, the relative performance improvement will not be as significant. 2005-04-04 19:50 neilc * src/backend/utils/adt/numeric.c: This patch changes int2_avg_accum() and int4_avg_accum() use the nodeAgg performance hack Tom introduced recently. This means we can avoid copying the transition array for each input tuple if these functions are invoked as aggregate transition functions. To test the performance improvement, I created a 1 million row table with a single int4 column. Without the patch, SELECT avg(col) FROM table took about 4.2 seconds (after the data was cached); with the patch, it took about 3.2 seconds. Naturally, the performance improvement for a less trivial query (or a table with wider rows) would be relatively smaller. 2005-03-12 15:25 tgl * contrib/intagg/int_aggregate.c, contrib/intagg/int_aggregate.sql.in, doc/src/sgml/xaggr.sgml, doc/src/sgml/xfunc.sgml, src/backend/executor/nodeAgg.c, src/backend/utils/adt/int8.c: Adjust the API for aggregate function calls so that a C-coded function can tell whether it is being used as an aggregate or not. This allows such a function to avoid re-pallocing a pass-by-reference transition value; normally it would be unsafe for a function to scribble on an input, but in the aggregate case it's safe to reuse the old transition value. Make int8inc() do this. This gets a useful improvement in the speed of COUNT(*), at least on narrow tables (it seems to be swamped by I/O when the table rows are wide). Per a discussion in early December with Neil Conway. I also fixed int_aggregate.c to check this, thereby turning it into something approaching a supportable technique instead of being a crude hack. I don't recall how Neil's original patch differed from what got applied... regards, tom lane ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 4: Have you searched our list archives? http://archives.postgresql.org