From: Robert Haas <rhaas@postgresql.org>
To: pgsql-committers@lists.postgresql.org
Subject: pgsql: Don't reset the pathlist of partitioned joinrels.
Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2025 17:25:44 +0000
Message-ID: <E1vRZYu-002yBI-15@gemulon.postgresql.org> (raw)
Don't reset the pathlist of partitioned joinrels.
apply_scanjoin_target_to_paths wants to avoid useless work and
platform-specific dependencies by throwing away the path list created
prior to applying the final scan/join target and constructing a whole
new one using the final scan/join target. However, this is only valid
when we'll consider all the same strategies after the pathlist reset
as before.
After resetting the path list, we reconsider Append and MergeAppend
paths with the modified target list; therefore, it's only valid for a
partitioned relation. However, what the previous coding missed is that
it cannot be a partitioned join relation, because that also has paths
that are not Append or MergeAppend paths and will not be reconsidered.
Thus, before this patch, we'd sometimes choose a partitionwise strategy
with a higher total cost than cheapest non-partitionwise strategy,
which is not good.
We had a surprising number of tests cases that were relying on this
bug to work as they did. A big part of the reason for this is that row
counts in regression test cases tend to be low, which brings the cost
of partitionwise and non-partitionwise strategies very close together,
especially for merge joins, where the real and perceived advantages of
a partitionwise approach are minimal. In addition, one test case
included a row-count-inflating join. In such cases, a partitionwise
join can easily be a loser on cost, because the total number of tuples
passing through an Append node is much higher than it is with a
non-partitionwise strategy. That test case is adjusted by adding
additional join clauses to avoid the row count inflation.
Although the failure of the planner to choose the lowest-cost path is a
bug, we generally do not back-patch fixes of this type, because planning
is not an exact science and there is always a possibility that some user
will end up with a plan that has a lower estimated cost but actually
runs more slowly. Hence, no backpatch here, either.
The code change here is exactly what was originally proposed by
Ashutosh, but the changes to the comments and test cases have been
very heavily rewritten by me, helped along by some very useful advice
from Richard Guo.
Reported-by: Ashutosh Bapat <ashutosh.bapat.oss@gmail.com>
Author: Ashutosh Bapat <ashutosh.bapat.oss@gmail.com>
Author: Robert Haas <rhaas@postgresql.org>
Reviewed-by: Jakub Wartak <jakub.wartak@enterprisedb.com>
Reviewed-by: Arne Roland <arne.roland@malkut.net>
Reviewed-by: Richard Guo <guofenglinux@gmail.com>
Discussion: http://postgr.es/m/CAExHW5toze58+jL-454J3ty11sqJyU13Sz5rJPQZDmASwZgWiA@mail.gmail.com
Branch
------
master
Details
-------
https://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/014f9a831a320666bf2195949f41710f970c54ad
Modified Files
--------------
src/backend/optimizer/plan/planner.c | 32 +++++----
src/test/regress/expected/partition_join.out | 98 +++++++++-------------------
src/test/regress/expected/subselect.out | 43 +++++-------
src/test/regress/sql/partition_join.sql | 20 ++++--
src/test/regress/sql/subselect.sql | 2 +
5 files changed, 83 insertions(+), 112 deletions(-)
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To: pgsql-committers@postgresql.org
Cc: rhaas@postgresql.org, pgsql-committers@lists.postgresql.org
Subject: Re: pgsql: Don't reset the pathlist of partitioned joinrels.
In-Reply-To: <E1vRZYu-002yBI-15@gemulon.postgresql.org>
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