Re: document the need to analyze partitioned tables

On Sat, Sep 30, 2023 at 12:39:43AM +0200, Laurenz Albe wrote:
> On Fri, 2023-09-29 at 18:08 -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > On Wed, Sep  6, 2023 at 05:53:56AM +0200, Laurenz Albe wrote:
> > > > We may have different mental models here. This relates to the part
> > > > that I wasn't keen on in your patch, i.e:
> > > >
> > > > +    The partitions of a partitioned table are normal tables and get processed
> > > > +    by autovacuum
> > > >
> > > > While I agree that the majority of partitions are likely to be
> > > > relkind='r', which you might ordinarily consider a "normal table", you
> > > > just might change your mind when you try to INSERT or UPDATE records
> > > > that would violate the partition constraint. Some partitions might
> > > > also be themselves partitioned tables and others might be foreign
> > > > tables. That does not really matter much when it comes to what
> > > > autovacuum does or does not do, but I'm not really keen to imply in
> > > > our documents that partitions are "normal tables".
> > >
> > > Agreed, there are differences between partitions and normal tables.
> > > And this is not the place in the documentation where we would like to
> > > get into detail about the differences.
> > >
> > > Attached is the next version of my patch.
> >
> > I adjusted your patch to be shorter and clearer, patch attached.  I am
> > planning to apply this back to PG 11.
>
> Thanks for looking at this.
>
> I am mostly fine with your version, but it does not directly state that
> autovacuum does not process partitioned tables. I think this should be
> clarified in the beginning.

Very good point! Updated patch attached.

--
Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> https://momjian.us
EDB https://enterprisedb.com

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