"Ramy M.Hassan" <rhassan(at)cs(dot)purdue(dot)edu> writes:
> I was wondering how index access methods reclaim the free disk pages after
> they are no longer used.
Btree and hash can both recycle unused pages, though neither is very
good about physically shrinking the file (neither can move existing
pages for instance). I dunno anything about rtree or gist though.
If you've got a horribly bloated index that you need to physically
shrink, REINDEX is the recommended answer at the moment.
regards, tom lane