Re: Using 128-bit integers for sum, avg and statistics aggregates

On 03/13/2015 10:22 PM, Peter Geoghegan wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 6:23 PM, Andreas Karlsson <andreas(at)proxel(dot)se> wrote:
>> /*
>> * Integer data types use Numeric accumulators to share code and avoid risk
>> * of overflow. To speed up aggregation 128-bit integer accumulators are
>> * used instead where sum(X) or sum(X*X) fit into 128-bits, and there is
>> * platform support.
>> *
>> * For int2 and int4 inputs sum(X) will fit into a 64-bit accumulator, hence
>> * we use faster special-purpose accumulator routines for SUM and AVG of
>> * these datatypes.
>> */
>>
>> #ifdef HAVE_INT128
>> typedef struct Int128AggState
>
> Not quite. Refer to the 128-bit integer accumulators as
> "special-purpose accumulator routines" instead. Then, in the case of
> the extant 64-bit accumulators, refer to them by the shorthand
> "integer accumulators". Otherwise it's the wrong way around.

I disagree. The term "integer accumulators" is confusing. Right now I do
not have any better ideas for how to write that comment, so I submit the
next version of the patch with the comment as I wrote it above. Feel
free to come up with a better wording, my English is not always up to
par when writing technical texts.

--
Andreas Karlsson