Killing off removed rels properly

From: Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>
To: pgsql-hackers(at)lists(dot)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Killing off removed rels properly
Date: 2023-02-10 20:50:20
Message-ID: 229905.1676062220@sss.pgh.pa.us
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Outer-join removal does this:

/*
* Mark the rel as "dead" to show it is no longer part of the join tree.
* (Removing it from the baserel array altogether seems too risky.)
*/
rel->reloptkind = RELOPT_DEADREL;

which apparently I thought was a good idea in 2010 (cf b78f6264e),
but looking at it now it just seems like an invitation to fail to
detect bugs. We've had a couple of recent reports of indxpath.c
failing like this:

Program terminated with signal SIGABRT, Aborted.
#0 __GI_raise (sig=sig(at)entry=6) at ../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/raise.c:50
#1 0x00007f0b57bc6859 in __GI_abort () at abort.c:79
#2 0x0000555ec56d3ff3 in ExceptionalCondition (conditionName=0x555ec5887ff0
"outer_rel->rows > 0", fileName=0x555ec5887f2c "indxpath.c",
lineNumber=1909) at assert.c:66
#3 0x0000555ec538a67a in get_loop_count (root=0x555ec5f72680, cur_relid=3,
outer_relids=0x555ec5f93960) at indxpath.c:1909
#4 0x0000555ec5388b5e in build_index_paths (root=0x555ec5f72680,
rel=0x555ec5f8f648, index=0x555ec5f8ca90, clauses=0x7fffeea57480,
useful_predicate=false, scantype=ST_BITMAPSCAN, skip_nonnative_saop=0x0,
skip_lower_saop=0x0) at indxpath.c:957

This is pretty impenetrable at first glance, but what it boils
down to is something accessing a "dead" rel and taking its contents
at face value. Fortunately the contents triggered an assertion,
but that hardly seems like something to count on to detect bugs.

I think it's time to clean this up by removing the rel from the
planner data structures altogether. The attached passes check-world,
and if it does trigger any problems I would say that's a clear
sign of bugs elsewhere.

regards, tom lane

Attachment Content-Type Size
really-remove-dead-rels-1.patch text/x-diff 2.1 KB

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