Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2005 13:51:33 -0500
From: "Jim C. Nasby" <jnasby@pervasive.com>
To: pgsql-docs@postgresql.org
Subject: Lazy vacuum space reclaiming
Message-ID: <20051014185133.GR23883@pervasive.com>
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From http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.0/interactive/maintenance.html:

"The first form, known as "lazy vacuum" or just VACUUM, marks expired
data in tables and indexes for future reuse; it does not attempt to
reclaim the space used by this expired data immediately. Therefore, the
table file is not shortened, and any unused space in the file is not
returned to the operating system."

This isn't completely accurate, though I'm not sure what a good wording
would be. Maybe:

"The first form, known as "lazy vacuum" or just VACUUM, marks expired
data in tables and indexes for future reuse. It only reclaims expired
space from tables if it is at the end of the table, and no empty space
is reclaimed from indexes."
-- 
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant      jnasby@pervasive.com
Pervasive Software      http://pervasive.com    work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf       cell: 512-569-9461