Re: Detoasting optionally to make Explain-Analyze less misleading

On 11/2/23 21:02, Matthias van de Meent wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Nov 2023 at 20:32, Tomas Vondra <tomas(dot)vondra(at)enterprisedb(dot)com> wrote:
>> On 11/2/23 20:09, stepan rutz wrote:
>>> db1=# explain (analyze, serialize) select * from test;
>>> QUERY PLAN
>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> Seq Scan on test (cost=0.00..22.00 rows=1200 width=40) (actual
>>> time=0.023..0.027 rows=1 loops=1)
>>> Planning Time: 0.077 ms
>>> Execution Time: 303.281 ms
>>> Serialized Bytes: 78888953 Bytes. Mode Text. Bandwidth 248.068 MB/sec
>> [...]
>> BTW if you really want to print amount of memory, maybe print it in
>> kilobytes, like every other place in explain.c?
>
> Isn't node width in bytes, or is it an opaque value not to be
> interpreted by users? I've never really investigated that part of
> Postgres' explain output...
>

Right, "width=" is always in bytes. But fields like amount of sorted
data is in kB, and this seems closer to that.

>> Also, explain generally
>> prints stuff in "key: value" style (in text format).
>
> That'd be key: metrickey=metricvalue for expanded values like those in
> plan nodes and the buffer usage, no?
>

Possibly. But the proposed output does neither. Also, it starts with
"Serialized Bytes" but then prints info about bandwidth.

>>> Serialized Bytes: 78888953 Bytes. Mode Text. Bandwidth 248.068 MB/sec
>
> I was thinking more along the lines of something like this:
>
> [...]
> Execution Time: xxx ms
> Serialization: time=yyy.yyy (in ms) size=yyy (in KiB, or B) mode=text
> (or binary)
> > This is significantly different from your output, as it doesn't hide
> the measured time behind a lossy calculation of bandwidth, but gives
> the measured data to the user; allowing them to derive their own
> precise bandwidth if they're so inclined.
>

Might work. I'm still not convinced we need to include the mode, or that
the size is that interesting/useful, though.

regards

--
Tomas Vondra
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