Support Parallel Append plan nodes.

When we create an Append node, we can spread out the workers over the
subplans instead of piling on to each subplan one at a time, which
should typically be a bit more efficient, both because the startup
cost of any plan executed entirely by one worker is paid only once and
also because of reduced contention.  We can also construct Append
plans using a mix of partial and non-partial subplans, which may allow
for parallelism in places that otherwise couldn't support it.
Unfortunately, this patch doesn't handle the important case of
parallelizing UNION ALL by running each branch in a separate worker;
the executor infrastructure is added here, but more planner work is
needed.

Amit Khandekar, Robert Haas, Amul Sul, reviewed and tested by
Ashutosh Bapat, Amit Langote, Rafia Sabih, Amit Kapila, and
Rajkumar Raghuwanshi.

Discussion: http://postgr.es/m/CAJ3gD9dy0K_E8r727heqXoBmWZ83HwLFwdcaSSmBQ1+S+vRuUQ@mail.gmail.com

1 files changed, 7 insertions, 3 deletions

diff --git a/src/backend/optimizer/plan/createplan.c b/src/backend/optimizer/plan/createplan.c
index d4454779ee9..f6c83d0477c 100644
--- a/src/backend/optimizer/plan/createplan.c
+++ b/src/backend/optimizer/plan/createplan.c
@@ -203,7 +203,8 @@ static NamedTuplestoreScan *make_namedtuplestorescan(List *qptlist, List *qpqual
 						 Index scanrelid, char *enrname);
 static WorkTableScan *make_worktablescan(List *qptlist, List *qpqual,
 				   Index scanrelid, int wtParam);
-static Append *make_append(List *appendplans, List *tlist, List *partitioned_rels);
+static Append *make_append(List *appendplans, int first_partial_plan,
+			List *tlist, List *partitioned_rels);
 static RecursiveUnion *make_recursive_union(List *tlist,
 					 Plan *lefttree,
 					 Plan *righttree,
@@ -1059,7 +1060,8 @@ create_append_plan(PlannerInfo *root, AppendPath *best_path)
 	 * parent-rel Vars it'll be asked to emit.
 	 */
 
-	plan = make_append(subplans, tlist, best_path->partitioned_rels);
+	plan = make_append(subplans, best_path->first_partial_path,
+					   tlist, best_path->partitioned_rels);
 
 	copy_generic_path_info(&plan->plan, (Path *) best_path);
 
@@ -5294,7 +5296,8 @@ make_foreignscan(List *qptlist,
 }
 
 static Append *
-make_append(List *appendplans, List *tlist, List *partitioned_rels)
+make_append(List *appendplans, int first_partial_plan,
+			List *tlist, List *partitioned_rels)
 {
 	Append	   *node = makeNode(Append);
 	Plan	   *plan = &node->plan;
@@ -5305,6 +5308,7 @@ make_append(List *appendplans, List *tlist, List *partitioned_rels)
 	plan->righttree = NULL;
 	node->partitioned_rels = partitioned_rels;
 	node->appendplans = appendplans;
+	node->first_partial_plan = first_partial_plan;
 
 	return node;
 }