PostgreSQL Index Internals

Re:PostgreSQL Index Internals by koolba on Tuesday August 09, 2016 @10:12AM (#12254581)

To all the upvoters, did you actually read the linked slides or are you just upvoting because it has "PostgreSQL" in the name[1]? Interesting to see this many votes with zero comments.

It is a great set of slides by the way. The btree piece would be old news to anyone familiar with database related data structures but the detail on GIN, GIST, and particularly BRIN make for a good read. Seeing the physical layout for each of those gives you a much better understanding of the cost of maintenance and what situations would they'd be useful.

Also, if you happened to follow the recent Postgres/Uber thread, this gives a lot more context as to how updates to a row would cascade to many writes for each index.

[1]: ... which isn't a bad idea anyway because PostgreSQL is awesome!

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Re:PostgreSQL Index Internals by HCIdivision17 on Tuesday August 09, 2016 @10:49AM (#12254836)

At least for me, I have two different voting style:

- Yeah, this is pretty cool. Upvote!

- I've got to save this for later when I can really read it

PostgreSQL stuff tends to be pretty reliably good, and usually with an educational bent. So I'll tend to use the upvote as a bookmark to go back to later.

I gotta say, I don't really like slides, but I've yet to be disappointed by a PostgreSQL post. And usually, a high vote/comment ratio is a nice indicator of quality.

EDIT: formatting

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Re:PostgreSQL Index Internals by jlgaddis on Tuesday August 09, 2016 @11:58AM (#12255475)

You might be interested in the "favorite" link under each submission title.

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Re:PostgreSQL Index Internals by HCIdivision17 on Wednesday August 10, 2016 @10:51AM (#12262183)

You know, I actually never noticed that. Is that another cool whizbang feature on the site? Somewhere along the line I got it into my head that upvotes were just how you favorited things.

Well. Time to start indexing my upvotes... (later...)

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Re:PostgreSQL Index Internals by elevenE on Tuesday August 09, 2016 @12:13PM (#12255605)

But I think the "favorites" are publicly view-able, isn't it? Is there any way to make them private?

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Re:PostgreSQL Index Internals by jlgaddis on Wednesday August 10, 2016 @03:20AM (#12260026)

From viewing my profile it appears that they are public. I've never actually used it, just noticed the feature a while back. I've been using Instapaper for ages for my "read later" links.

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Re:PostgreSQL Index Internals by hvo on Tuesday August 09, 2016 @11:40AM (#12255339)

Let me tell you one open secret on HN. If you see high upvote article on the front page and it stays there for a somewhat longer time ,chances are it is of great quality stuff.Most folks here can relatively separate the wheat from the chaff.

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Re:PostgreSQL Index Internals by rlau26 on Tuesday August 09, 2016 @12:18PM (#12255645)

Same question could be asked of anything "written in Go"

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Re:PostgreSQL Index Internals by koolba on Tuesday August 09, 2016 @12:36PM (#12255804)

> Same question could be asked of anything "written in Go"

Haha. I 've noticed that as well.

It does beg the question, would a Postgres driver written in Go cause the HN front page to sink into a black hole of upvotes?

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Re:PostgreSQL Index Internals by amag on Tuesday August 09, 2016 @05:35PM (#12257867)

Only if it was written by PG...but last I heard he's a die hard LISP:er so we're probably safe..

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Re:PostgreSQL Index Internals by mcherm on Tuesday August 09, 2016 @12:09PM (#12255574)

> did you actually read the linked slides?

Valid question. Yes, I did.

I wish the final slide (which summarizes what each index type is good for) had been at the beginning also.

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Re:PostgreSQL Index Internals by thejosh on Tuesday August 09, 2016 @11:54AM (#12255439)

I watched the video, instead of the slides.

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