Re: [HACKERS] Re: [QUESTIONS] Business cases

From: "Thomas G(dot) Lockhart" <lockhart(at)alumni(dot)caltech(dot)edu>
To: The Hermit Hacker <scrappy(at)hub(dot)org>
Cc: Tom <tom(at)sdf(dot)com>, pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: [HACKERS] Re: [QUESTIONS] Business cases
Date: 1998-01-19 16:05:12
Message-ID: 34C379B8.43E1197F@alumni.caltech.edu
Views: Raw Message | Whole Thread | Download mbox | Resend email
Thread:
Lists: pgsql-hackers

> > Also, how are people handling tables with lots of rows? The 8k tuple
> > size can waste a lot of space. I need to be able to handle a 2 million
> > row table, which will eat up 16GB, plus more for indexes.
>
> This oen is improved upon in v6.3, where at compile time you can stipulate
> the tuple size. We are looking into making this an 'initdb' option instead,
> so that you can have the same binary for multiple "servers", but any database
> created under a particular server will be constrained by that tuple size.

Tom's "problem" is probably not a bad as he thinks. The 8k tuple size limit is a
result of the current 8k page size limit, but multiple tuples are allowed on a page.
They are just not allowed to span pages. So, there is some wasted space (as is true
for many, most, or all commercial dbs also) but it is on average only the size of
half a tuple, and can be easily predicted once the tuple sizes are known.

- Tom (T2?)

In response to

Browse pgsql-hackers by date

  From Date Subject
Next Message Bruce Momjian 1998-01-19 17:04:53 Re: Re: [HACKERS] Re: [QUESTIONS] Business cases
Previous Message Serj 1998-01-19 14:42:35 postgres 6.2.1 Group BY BUG