MIME-Version: 1.0
References: <CANNMO++9W_UA8PB9AkDRF3JBv4K7K1FnisrXTjicL+WZhwUJzw@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <CANNMO++9W_UA8PB9AkDRF3JBv4K7K1FnisrXTjicL+WZhwUJzw@mail.gmail.com>
From: Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2024 13:19:36 -0500
Message-ID: <CA+TgmoZF7PbO7DB_VMQS4664EgOdObhFtAoLUb83bp3i-623UQ@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Proposals for EXPLAIN: rename ANALYZE to EXECUTE and extend VERBOSE
To: Nikolay Samokhvalov <samokhvalov@gmail.com>
Cc: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Archived-At: <https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/CA%2BTgmoZF7PbO7DB_VMQS4664EgOdObhFtAoLUb83bp3i-623UQ%40mail.gmail.com>
Precedence: bulk

On Tue, Nov 5, 2024 at 1:02=E2=80=AFPM Nikolay Samokhvalov
<samokhvalov@gmail.com> wrote:
> hi, I have a proposal, resulted from numerous communications with various=
 folks, both very experienced and new Postgres users:
>
> 1) EXPLAIN ANALYZE Is sometimes very confusing (because there is ANALYZE)=
. Let's rename it to EXPLAIN EXECUTE?

The trouble is that EXPLAIN EXECUTE already means something.

robert.haas=3D# explain execute foo;
ERROR:  prepared statement "foo" does not exist

Granted, that would not make it impossible to make EXPLAIN (EXECUTE) a
synonym for EXPLAIN (ANALYZE), but IMHO it would be pretty confusing
if EXPLAIN EXECUTE and EXPLAIN (EXECUTE) did different things.

> 2) VERBOSE doesn't include BUFFERS, and doesn't include SETTINGS; it migh=
t be also confusing sometimes. Let's include them so VERBOSE would be reall=
y verbose?

I agree that the naming here isn't great, but I think making the
options non-orthogonal would probably be worse.

> 3) small thing about grammar: allow omitting parentheses, so EXPLAIN EXEC=
UTE VERBOSE would work.

Perhaps surprisingly, it turns out that this is not a small change. As
Tom mentions, this would have a pretty large blast radius. In fact,
the reason I wrote the patch to introduce parenthesized options for
EXPLAIN was precisely because the unparenthesized option syntax does
not scale nicely at all.

--=20
Robert Haas
EDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com