AW: TOAST & vacuum

> > TOAST is now vacuum-safe. When needed, the toaster creates a
> > second heap tuple, containing only plain or compressed
> > values. This one is then returned by the heap access methods
> > to the caller, so indices will never contain external
> > references.
> >
> > The changes are covered by #ifdef TOAST_INDICES, so can
> > easily be disabled at the time we have file versioning and
> > can recreate indices during vacuum.
>
> Seems this has some performance advantages. Un-toasting to traverse a
> btree index would be pretty slow. This way, it is all in the index.

Yes, but it limits the key size. I was suggesting to Jan, that he reconsider
the "toast choice made for the heap tuple" for each index key, and store the
key
compressed if it fits into 1/4 page.

I think the current setup (index toasting disabled) must be a lot better
performance
wise than if you enable the current "index toasting" state of things.

Andreas