Re: PostgreSQL and a Catch-22 Issue related to dead rows

[Christophe Pettus]

> On Dec 9, 2024, at 03:02, Lars Aksel Opsahl <lars.ops...@nibio.no> wrote:
> If there were a way to remove dead rows without requiring a commit from 
> totally unrelated jobs, it would be much easier.

Without seeing into the future, PostgreSQL doesn't know if a particular open 
transaction is "totally unrelated" to any other open transaction.  Any open 
transaction can potentially see rows that have been deleted or updated since it 
began, and without knowing what operations are coming, it doesn't know if it is 
safe to remove them.

(Strictly speaking, the rows you are describing are not "dead," in that they 
are still visible to some transaction.)