Re: [PATCH] Slight improvement of worker_spi.c example

On Wed, Jun 14, 2023 at 02:08:03PM +0300, Aleksander Alekseev wrote:
>
> Unfortunately I'm not familiar with the problem in respect of naptime
> Julien is referring to. If you know what this problem is and how to
> fix it, go for it. I'll review and test the code then. I can write the
> part of the patch that fixes the part regarding dynamic workers if
> necessary.

Oh, sorry I thought it was somewhat evident.

The naptime GUC description says:

> Duration between each check (in seconds).

and the associated code does a single

WaitLatch(..., WL_LATCH_SET | WL_TIMEOUT, ...)

So unless I'm missing something nothing prevents the check being run way more
often than expected if the latch keeps being set.

Similarly, my understanding of "duration between checks" is that a naptime of 1
min means that the check should be run a minute apart, assuming it's possible.
As is, the checks are run naptime + query execution time apart, which doesn't
seem right. Obviously there's isn't much you can do if the query execution
lasts for more than naptime, apart from detecting it and raising a warning to
let users know that their configuration isn't adequate (or that there's some
other problem like some lock contention or something), similarly to e.g.
checkpoint_warning.

Note I haven't looked closely at this module otherwise, so I can't say if there
are some other problems around.