Re: expose parallel leader in CSV and log_line_prefix

On 2020-Jul-17, Justin Pryzby wrote:

> Ok, but should we then consider changing pg_stat_activity for consistency ?
> Probably in v13 to avoid changing it a year later.
> https://git.postgresql.org/gitweb/?p=postgresql.git;a=commitdiff;h=b025f32e0b5d7668daec9bfa957edf3599f4baa8
>
> I think the story is that we're exposing to the user a "leader pid" what's
> internally called (and used as) the "lock group leader", which for the leader
> process is set to its own PID. But I think what we're exposing as leader_pid
> will seem like an implementation artifact to users.

IMO it *is* an implementation artifact if, as you say, the leader PID
remains set after the parallel query is done. I mentioned the pgbouncer
case before: if you run a single parallel query, then the process
remains a "parallel leader" for days or weeks afterwards even if it
hasn't run a parallel query ever since. That doesn't sound great to me.

I think it's understandable and OK if there's a small race condition
that means you report a process as a leader shortly before or shortly
after a parallel query is actually executed. But doing so until backend
termination seems confusing as well as useless.

--
Álvaro Herrera https://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
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