Revise handling of dropped columns in JOIN alias lists to avoid a

performance problem pointed out by phil@vodafone: to wit, we were
spending O(N^2) time to check dropped-ness in an N-deep join tree,
even in the case where the tree was freshly constructed and couldn't
possibly mention any dropped columns.  Instead of recursing in
get_rte_attribute_is_dropped(), change the data structure definition:
the joinaliasvars list of a JOIN RTE must have a NULL Const instead
of a Var at any position that references a now-dropped column.  This
costs nothing during normal parse-rewrite-plan path, and instead we
have a linear-time update to make when loading a stored rule that
might contain now-dropped columns.  While at it, move the responsibility
for acquring locks on relations referenced by rules into this separate
function (which I therefore chose to call AcquireRewriteLocks).
This saves effort --- namely, duplicated lock grabs in parser and rewriter
--- in the normal path at a cost of one extra non-locked heap_open()
in the stored-rule path; seems a good tradeoff.  A fringe benefit is
that it is now *much* clearer that we acquire lock on relations referenced
in rules before we make any rewriter decisions based on their properties.
(I don't know of any bug of that ilk, but it wasn't exactly clear before.)

1 files changed, 13 insertions, 32 deletions

diff --git a/src/backend/parser/parse_relation.c b/src/backend/parser/parse_relation.c
index bb32ebdf1c1..25205d8894e 100644
--- a/src/backend/parser/parse_relation.c
+++ b/src/backend/parser/parse_relation.c
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
  *
  *
  * IDENTIFICATION
- *	  $PostgreSQL: pgsql/src/backend/parser/parse_relation.c,v 1.108 2005/05/29 17:10:23 tgl Exp $
+ *	  $PostgreSQL: pgsql/src/backend/parser/parse_relation.c,v 1.109 2005/06/03 23:05:28 tgl Exp $
  *
  *-------------------------------------------------------------------------
  */
@@ -1202,8 +1202,7 @@ addImplicitRTE(ParseState *pstate, RangeVar *relation)
  * results.  If include_dropped is TRUE then empty strings and NULL constants
  * (not Vars!) are returned for dropped columns.
  *
- * The target RTE is the rtindex'th entry of rtable.  (The whole rangetable
- * must be passed since we need it to determine dropped-ness for JOIN columns.)
+ * The target RTE is the rtindex'th entry of rtable.
  * sublevels_up is the varlevelsup value to use in the created Vars.
  *
  * The output lists go into *colnames and *colvars.
@@ -1358,6 +1357,8 @@ expandRTE(List *rtable, int rtindex, int sublevels_up,
 				varattno = 0;
 				forboth(colname, rte->eref->colnames, aliasvar, rte->joinaliasvars)
 				{
+					Node	   *avar = (Node *) lfirst(aliasvar);
+
 					varattno++;
 
 					/*
@@ -1365,26 +1366,19 @@ expandRTE(List *rtable, int rtindex, int sublevels_up,
 					 * deleted columns in the join; but we have to check
 					 * since this routine is also used by the rewriter,
 					 * and joins found in stored rules might have join
-					 * columns for since-deleted columns.
+					 * columns for since-deleted columns.  This will be
+					 * signaled by a NULL Const in the alias-vars list.
 					 */
-					if (get_rte_attribute_is_dropped(rtable, rtindex,
-													 varattno))
+					if (IsA(avar, Const))
 					{
 						if (include_dropped)
 						{
 							if (colnames)
 								*colnames = lappend(*colnames,
-												makeString(pstrdup("")));
+													makeString(pstrdup("")));
 							if (colvars)
-							{
-								/*
-								 * can't use atttypid here, but it doesn't
-								 * really matter what type the Const
-								 * claims to be.
-								 */
 								*colvars = lappend(*colvars,
-												 makeNullConst(INT4OID));
-							}
+												   copyObject(avar));
 						}
 						continue;
 					}
@@ -1399,7 +1393,6 @@ expandRTE(List *rtable, int rtindex, int sublevels_up,
 
 					if (colvars)
 					{
-						Node	   *avar = (Node *) lfirst(aliasvar);
 						Var		   *varnode;
 
 						varnode = makeVar(rtindex, varattno,
@@ -1711,9 +1704,8 @@ get_rte_attribute_type(RangeTblEntry *rte, AttrNumber attnum,
  *		Check whether attempted attribute ref is to a dropped column
  */
 bool
-get_rte_attribute_is_dropped(List *rtable, int rtindex, AttrNumber attnum)
+get_rte_attribute_is_dropped(RangeTblEntry *rte, AttrNumber attnum)
 {
-	RangeTblEntry *rte = rt_fetch(rtindex, rtable);
 	bool		result;
 
 	switch (rte->rtekind)
@@ -1750,8 +1742,8 @@ get_rte_attribute_is_dropped(List *rtable, int rtindex, AttrNumber attnum)
 				 * constructed, but one in a stored rule might contain
 				 * columns that were dropped from the underlying tables,
 				 * if said columns are nowhere explicitly referenced in
-				 * the rule.  So we have to recursively look at the
-				 * referenced column.
+				 * the rule.  This will be signaled to us by a NULL Const
+				 * in the joinaliasvars list.
 				 */
 				Var		   *aliasvar;
 
@@ -1760,18 +1752,7 @@ get_rte_attribute_is_dropped(List *rtable, int rtindex, AttrNumber attnum)
 					elog(ERROR, "invalid varattno %d", attnum);
 				aliasvar = (Var *) list_nth(rte->joinaliasvars, attnum - 1);
 
-				/*
-				 * If the list item isn't a simple Var, then it must
-				 * represent a merged column, ie a USING column, and so it
-				 * couldn't possibly be dropped (since it's referenced in
-				 * the join clause).
-				 */
-				if (!IsA(aliasvar, Var))
-					result = false;
-				else
-					result = get_rte_attribute_is_dropped(rtable,
-														  aliasvar->varno,
-													 aliasvar->varattno);
+				result = IsA(aliasvar, Const);
 			}
 			break;
 		case RTE_FUNCTION: