In the planner, replace an empty FROM clause with a dummy RTE.

The fact that "SELECT expression" has no base relations has long been a
thorn in the side of the planner.  It makes it hard to flatten a sub-query
that looks like that, or is a trivial VALUES() item, because the planner
generally uses relid sets to identify sub-relations, and such a sub-query
would have an empty relid set if we flattened it.  prepjointree.c contains
some baroque logic that works around this in certain special cases --- but
there is a much better answer.  We can replace an empty FROM clause with a
dummy RTE that acts like a table of one row and no columns, and then there
are no such corner cases to worry about.  Instead we need some logic to
get rid of useless dummy RTEs, but that's simpler and covers more cases
than what was there before.

For really trivial cases, where the query is just "SELECT expression" and
nothing else, there's a hazard that adding the extra RTE makes for a
noticeable slowdown; even though it's not much processing, there's not
that much for the planner to do overall.  However testing says that the
penalty is very small, close to the noise level.  In more complex queries,
this is able to find optimizations that we could not find before.

The new RTE type is called RTE_RESULT, since the "scan" plan type it
gives rise to is a Result node (the same plan we produced for a "SELECT
expression" query before).  To avoid confusion, rename the old ResultPath
path type to GroupResultPath, reflecting that it's only used in degenerate
grouping cases where we know the query produces just one grouped row.
(It wouldn't work to unify the two cases, because there are different
rules about where the associated quals live during query_planner.)

Note: although this touches readfuncs.c, I don't think a catversion
bump is required, because the added case can't occur in stored rules,
only plans.

Patch by me, reviewed by David Rowley and Mark Dilger

Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/15944.1521127664@sss.pgh.pa.us

1 files changed, 78 insertions, 9 deletions

diff --git a/src/backend/optimizer/plan/createplan.c b/src/backend/optimizer/plan/createplan.c
index 97d0c281325..c1aa0ba663b 100644
--- a/src/backend/optimizer/plan/createplan.c
+++ b/src/backend/optimizer/plan/createplan.c
@@ -84,7 +84,8 @@ static Plan *create_gating_plan(PlannerInfo *root, Path *path, Plan *plan,
 static Plan *create_join_plan(PlannerInfo *root, JoinPath *best_path);
 static Plan *create_append_plan(PlannerInfo *root, AppendPath *best_path);
 static Plan *create_merge_append_plan(PlannerInfo *root, MergeAppendPath *best_path);
-static Result *create_result_plan(PlannerInfo *root, ResultPath *best_path);
+static Result *create_group_result_plan(PlannerInfo *root,
+						 GroupResultPath *best_path);
 static ProjectSet *create_project_set_plan(PlannerInfo *root, ProjectSetPath *best_path);
 static Material *create_material_plan(PlannerInfo *root, MaterialPath *best_path,
 					 int flags);
@@ -138,6 +139,8 @@ static CteScan *create_ctescan_plan(PlannerInfo *root, Path *best_path,
 					List *tlist, List *scan_clauses);
 static NamedTuplestoreScan *create_namedtuplestorescan_plan(PlannerInfo *root,
 								Path *best_path, List *tlist, List *scan_clauses);
+static Result *create_resultscan_plan(PlannerInfo *root, Path *best_path,
+					   List *tlist, List *scan_clauses);
 static WorkTableScan *create_worktablescan_plan(PlannerInfo *root, Path *best_path,
 						  List *tlist, List *scan_clauses);
 static ForeignScan *create_foreignscan_plan(PlannerInfo *root, ForeignPath *best_path,
@@ -403,11 +406,16 @@ create_plan_recurse(PlannerInfo *root, Path *best_path, int flags)
 				plan = (Plan *) create_minmaxagg_plan(root,
 													  (MinMaxAggPath *) best_path);
 			}
+			else if (IsA(best_path, GroupResultPath))
+			{
+				plan = (Plan *) create_group_result_plan(root,
+														 (GroupResultPath *) best_path);
+			}
 			else
 			{
-				Assert(IsA(best_path, ResultPath));
-				plan = (Plan *) create_result_plan(root,
-												   (ResultPath *) best_path);
+				/* Simple RTE_RESULT base relation */
+				Assert(IsA(best_path, Path));
+				plan = create_scan_plan(root, best_path, flags);
 			}
 			break;
 		case T_ProjectSet:
@@ -691,6 +699,13 @@ create_scan_plan(PlannerInfo *root, Path *best_path, int flags)
 															scan_clauses);
 			break;
 
+		case T_Result:
+			plan = (Plan *) create_resultscan_plan(root,
+												   best_path,
+												   tlist,
+												   scan_clauses);
+			break;
+
 		case T_WorkTableScan:
 			plan = (Plan *) create_worktablescan_plan(root,
 													  best_path,
@@ -922,17 +937,34 @@ create_gating_plan(PlannerInfo *root, Path *path, Plan *plan,
 				   List *gating_quals)
 {
 	Plan	   *gplan;
+	Plan	   *splan;
 
 	Assert(gating_quals);
 
 	/*
+	 * We might have a trivial Result plan already.  Stacking one Result atop
+	 * another is silly, so if that applies, just discard the input plan.
+	 * (We're assuming its targetlist is uninteresting; it should be either
+	 * the same as the result of build_path_tlist, or a simplified version.)
+	 */
+	splan = plan;
+	if (IsA(plan, Result))
+	{
+		Result	   *rplan = (Result *) plan;
+
+		if (rplan->plan.lefttree == NULL &&
+			rplan->resconstantqual == NULL)
+			splan = NULL;
+	}
+
+	/*
 	 * Since we need a Result node anyway, always return the path's requested
 	 * tlist; that's never a wrong choice, even if the parent node didn't ask
 	 * for CP_EXACT_TLIST.
 	 */
 	gplan = (Plan *) make_result(build_path_tlist(root, path),
 								 (Node *) gating_quals,
-								 plan);
+								 splan);
 
 	/*
 	 * Notice that we don't change cost or size estimates when doing gating.
@@ -1254,15 +1286,14 @@ create_merge_append_plan(PlannerInfo *root, MergeAppendPath *best_path)
 }
 
 /*
- * create_result_plan
+ * create_group_result_plan
  *	  Create a Result plan for 'best_path'.
- *	  This is only used for degenerate cases, such as a query with an empty
- *	  jointree.
+ *	  This is only used for degenerate grouping cases.
  *
  *	  Returns a Plan node.
  */
 static Result *
-create_result_plan(PlannerInfo *root, ResultPath *best_path)
+create_group_result_plan(PlannerInfo *root, GroupResultPath *best_path)
 {
 	Result	   *plan;
 	List	   *tlist;
@@ -3478,6 +3509,44 @@ create_namedtuplestorescan_plan(PlannerInfo *root, Path *best_path,
 }
 
 /*
+ * create_resultscan_plan
+ *	 Returns a Result plan for the RTE_RESULT base relation scanned by
+ *	'best_path' with restriction clauses 'scan_clauses' and targetlist
+ *	'tlist'.
+ */
+static Result *
+create_resultscan_plan(PlannerInfo *root, Path *best_path,
+					   List *tlist, List *scan_clauses)
+{
+	Result	   *scan_plan;
+	Index		scan_relid = best_path->parent->relid;
+	RangeTblEntry *rte PG_USED_FOR_ASSERTS_ONLY;
+
+	Assert(scan_relid > 0);
+	rte = planner_rt_fetch(scan_relid, root);
+	Assert(rte->rtekind == RTE_RESULT);
+
+	/* Sort clauses into best execution order */
+	scan_clauses = order_qual_clauses(root, scan_clauses);
+
+	/* Reduce RestrictInfo list to bare expressions; ignore pseudoconstants */
+	scan_clauses = extract_actual_clauses(scan_clauses, false);
+
+	/* Replace any outer-relation variables with nestloop params */
+	if (best_path->param_info)
+	{
+		scan_clauses = (List *)
+			replace_nestloop_params(root, (Node *) scan_clauses);
+	}
+
+	scan_plan = make_result(tlist, (Node *) scan_clauses, NULL);
+
+	copy_generic_path_info(&scan_plan->plan, best_path);
+
+	return scan_plan;
+}
+
+/*
  * create_worktablescan_plan
  *	 Returns a worktablescan plan for the base relation scanned by 'best_path'
  *	 with restriction clauses 'scan_clauses' and targetlist 'tlist'.