Sender: ed
Message-ID: <38553CEA.8CFFD543@austin.rr.com>
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1999 12:37:30 -0600
From: Ed Loehr <ELOEHR@austin.rr.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: pgsql-general@postgresql.org, pgsql-interfaces@postgresql.org
Subject: [GENERAL/INTERFACES] Dynamically detecting need to vacuum?
References: <14421.4341.805191.194488@ampato.aeccom.com>
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I'm seeing a few intermittent show-stopper errors (some of which I've asked
about previously in these forums) which go away after vacuum is run.  Pgsql
documentation recommends to vacuum nightly or after copying a large class
(not sure exactly what that means) or deleting a large number of records.
I'm tempted to run vaccum almost anytime I detect Pgsql errors (via perl
DBI) in order to try to salvage/retry the query at hand on the fly at the
cost of a much slower query from the user's perspective.

I'd like to learn how to programmatically calculate/detect when a vacuuming
is needed, and would like to hear any advice on how folks are successfully
doing this or think would best be done.

Any comments?

[Hackers:  it'd be nice to have pgsql optionally take care of this...]

I'm using Pg 6.5.2 on RH Linux 6.0 2.2.5-15smp via perl DBI/DBD::Pg...

Thanks in advance,
Ed Loehr