Re: REPACK and naming

On Wed, Sep 17, 2025 at 01:42:29AM +0200, Álvaro Herrera wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On 2025-Sep-16, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>
> > I am starting to get worried about the confusing of adding a REPACK
> > command. We already have a lot of confusion around vacuum and analyze:
> >
> > * autoanalyze does vacuum and analyze
> > * VACUUM FULL is much different from VACUUM
> >
> > It seems if we add REPACK as a command, it is somewhere between VACUUM
> > FULL and VACUUM in severity/impact.
>
> No, REPACK is exactly where VACUUM FULL is in terms of impact and
> severity; it's not between anything. The confusion stems precisely from
> VACUUM being a thing that's a completely different one from VACUUM FULL,
> yet they have pretty much the same name. What I'm doing is give one of
> those things a different name, to reduce confusion. Note that there's
> no intention to add autorepack, because that would (IMO) make no sense.
>
> Another thing I'm doing with that patch is rename CLUSTER so that it is
> also REPACK. This also makes sense, because VACUUM FULL _is_ the same
> as CLUSTER, except that it follows current physical order instead of
> following a specific index's order.

So the CLUSTER command is removed and people should use REPACK instead?
And VACUUM FULL stays unchanged?

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

Do not let urgent matters crowd out time for investment in the future.