Remove HeapBitmapScan's skip_fetch optimization

The optimization does not take the removal of TIDs by a concurrent vacuum into
account. The concurrent vacuum can remove dead TIDs and make pages ALL_VISIBLE
while those dead TIDs are referenced in the bitmap. This can lead to a
skip_fetch scan returning too many tuples.

It likely would be possible to implement this optimization safely, but we
don't have the necessary infrastructure in place. Nor is it clear that it's
worth building that infrastructure, given how limited the skip_fetch
optimization is.

In the backbranches we just disable the optimization by always passing
need_tuples=true to table_beginscan_bm(). We can't perform API/ABI changes in
the backbranches and we want to make the change as minimal as possible.

Author: Matthias van de Meent <boekewurm+postgres@gmail.com>
Reported-By: Konstantin Knizhnik <knizhnik@garret.ru>
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/CAEze2Wg3gXXZTr6_rwC+s4-o2ZVFB5F985uUSgJTsECx6AmGcQ@mail.gmail.com
Backpatch-through: 13

1 files changed, 1 insertions, 11 deletions

diff --git a/src/include/access/heapam.h b/src/include/access/heapam.h
index 1640d9c32f7..e48fe434cd3 100644
--- a/src/include/access/heapam.h
+++ b/src/include/access/heapam.h
@@ -103,17 +103,7 @@ typedef struct BitmapHeapScanDescData
 {
 	HeapScanDescData rs_heap_base;
 
-	/*
-	 * These fields are only used for bitmap scans for the "skip fetch"
-	 * optimization. Bitmap scans needing no fields from the heap may skip
-	 * fetching an all visible block, instead using the number of tuples per
-	 * block reported by the bitmap to determine how many NULL-filled tuples
-	 * to return. They are common to parallel and serial BitmapHeapScans
-	 */
-
-	/* page of VM containing info for current block */
-	Buffer		rs_vmbuffer;
-	int			rs_empty_tuples_pending;
+	/* Holds no data */
 }			BitmapHeapScanDescData;
 typedef struct BitmapHeapScanDescData *BitmapHeapScanDesc;