Add lock_timeout configuration parameter.

This GUC allows limiting the time spent waiting to acquire any one
heavyweight lock.

In support of this, improve the recently-added timeout infrastructure
to permit efficiently enabling or disabling multiple timeouts at once.
That reduces the performance hit from turning on lock_timeout, though
it's still not zero.

Zoltán Böszörményi, reviewed by Tom Lane,
Stephen Frost, and Hari Babu

1 files changed, 37 insertions, 3 deletions

diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/config.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/config.sgml
index 575b40b58df..8c520e1267b 100644
--- a/doc/src/sgml/config.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/config.sgml
@@ -5077,7 +5077,7 @@ COPY postgres_log FROM '/full/path/to/logfile.csv' WITH csv;
       </indexterm>
       <listitem>
        <para>
-        Abort any statement that takes over the specified number of
+        Abort any statement that takes more than the specified number of
         milliseconds, starting from the time the command arrives at the server
         from the client.  If <varname>log_min_error_statement</> is set to
         <literal>ERROR</> or lower, the statement that timed out will also be
@@ -5086,8 +5086,42 @@ COPY postgres_log FROM '/full/path/to/logfile.csv' WITH csv;
 
        <para>
         Setting <varname>statement_timeout</> in
-        <filename>postgresql.conf</> is not recommended because it
-        affects all sessions.
+        <filename>postgresql.conf</> is not recommended because it would
+        affect all sessions.
+       </para>
+      </listitem>
+     </varlistentry>
+
+     <varlistentry id="guc-lock-timeout" xreflabel="lock_timeout">
+      <term><varname>lock_timeout</varname> (<type>integer</type>)</term>
+      <indexterm>
+       <primary><varname>lock_timeout</> configuration parameter</primary>
+      </indexterm>
+      <listitem>
+       <para>
+        Abort any statement that waits longer than the specified number of
+        milliseconds while attempting to acquire a lock on a table, index,
+        row, or other database object.  The time limit applies separately to
+        each lock acquisition attempt.  The limit applies both to explicit
+        locking requests (such as <command>LOCK TABLE</>, or <command>SELECT
+        FOR UPDATE</> without <literal>NOWAIT</>) and to implicitly-acquired
+        locks.  If <varname>log_min_error_statement</> is set to
+        <literal>ERROR</> or lower, the statement that timed out will be
+        logged.  A value of zero (the default) turns this off.
+       </para>
+
+       <para>
+        Unlike <varname>statement_timeout</>, this timeout can only occur
+        while waiting for locks.  Note that if <varname>statement_timeout</>
+        is nonzero, it is rather pointless to set <varname>lock_timeout</> to
+        the same or larger value, since the statement timeout would always
+        trigger first.
+       </para>
+
+       <para>
+        Setting <varname>lock_timeout</> in
+        <filename>postgresql.conf</> is not recommended because it would
+        affect all sessions.
        </para>
       </listitem>
      </varlistentry>