Re: Patch(es) to expose n_live_tuples and

Alvaro Herrera wrote:
> Glen Parker wrote:
>
> [slightly reformatted for sanity]
>
> > Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > >Is this something we want in 8.3? I am thinking visible/expired would
> > >be clearer terms.
> >
> > I'd love to see this back patched into 8.2.1 if possible.
> >
> > Should I resubmit with new names?
>
> I'm not really convinced that Bruce's proposed names seem any better to
> me. What's wrong with "dead" and "live"?

With MVCC, my thought has always been that alive/dead is in the eye of
the beholder/backend. For column names the user will see, I think we
need to use terms that we have used in the past. If we want to move to
alive/dead, fine, but we then need to make sure we use consistent terms
in the documentation.

In my mind, visible really means "visible to anyone", and expired means
visible to no one. I don't think live/dead can be as clear as
visible/expired, e.g. saying the tuple is "live to someone" seems
more awkward.

--
Bruce Momjian bruce(at)momjian(dot)us
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com

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