| PostgreSQL 9.6.19 Documentation | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Prev | Up | Chapter 59. Index Access Method Interface Definition | Next | 
The index construction and maintenance functions that an index access method must provide in IndexAmRoutine are:
IndexBuildResult *
ambuild (Relation heapRelation,
         Relation indexRelation,
         IndexInfo *indexInfo);
   Build a new index.  The index relation has been physically created,
   but is empty.  It must be filled in with whatever fixed data the
   access method requires, plus entries for all tuples already existing
   in the table.  Ordinarily the ambuild function will call
   IndexBuildHeapScan() to scan the table for existing tuples
   and compute the keys that need to be inserted into the index.
   The function must return a palloc'd struct containing statistics about
   the new index.
  
void ambuildempty (Relation indexRelation);
Build an empty index, and write it to the initialization fork (INIT_FORKNUM) of the given relation. This method is called only for unlogged indexes; the empty index written to the initialization fork will be copied over the main relation fork on each server restart.
bool
aminsert (Relation indexRelation,
          Datum *values,
          bool *isnull,
          ItemPointer heap_tid,
          Relation heapRelation,
          IndexUniqueCheck checkUnique);Insert a new tuple into an existing index. The values and isnull arrays give the key values to be indexed, and heap_tid is the TID to be indexed. If the access method supports unique indexes (its amcanunique flag is true) then checkUnique indicates the type of uniqueness check to perform. This varies depending on whether the unique constraint is deferrable; see Section 59.5 for details. Normally the access method only needs the heapRelation parameter when performing uniqueness checking (since then it will have to look into the heap to verify tuple liveness).
The function's Boolean result value is significant only when checkUnique is UNIQUE_CHECK_PARTIAL. In this case a TRUE result means the new entry is known unique, whereas FALSE means it might be non-unique (and a deferred uniqueness check must be scheduled). For other cases a constant FALSE result is recommended.
   Some indexes might not index all tuples.  If the tuple is not to be
   indexed, aminsert should just return without doing anything.
  
IndexBulkDeleteResult *
ambulkdelete (IndexVacuumInfo *info,
              IndexBulkDeleteResult *stats,
              IndexBulkDeleteCallback callback,
              void *callback_state);
   Delete tuple(s) from the index.  This is a "bulk delete" operation
   that is intended to be implemented by scanning the whole index and checking
   each entry to see if it should be deleted.
   The passed-in callback function must be called, in the style
   callback(TID, callback_state) returns bool,
   to determine whether any particular index entry, as identified by its
   referenced TID, is to be deleted.  Must return either NULL or a palloc'd
   struct containing statistics about the effects of the deletion operation.
   It is OK to return NULL if no information needs to be passed on to
   amvacuumcleanup.
  
   Because of limited maintenance_work_mem,
   ambulkdelete might need to be called more than once when many
   tuples are to be deleted.  The stats argument is the result
   of the previous call for this index (it is NULL for the first call within a
   VACUUM operation).  This allows the AM to accumulate statistics
   across the whole operation.  Typically, ambulkdelete will
   modify and return the same struct if the passed stats is not
   null.
  
IndexBulkDeleteResult *
amvacuumcleanup (IndexVacuumInfo *info,
                 IndexBulkDeleteResult *stats);
   Clean up after a VACUUM operation (zero or more
   ambulkdelete calls).  This does not have to do anything
   beyond returning index statistics, but it might perform bulk cleanup
   such as reclaiming empty index pages.  stats is whatever the
   last ambulkdelete call returned, or NULL if
   ambulkdelete was not called because no tuples needed to be
   deleted.  If the result is not NULL it must be a palloc'd struct.
   The statistics it contains will be used to update pg_class,
   and will be reported by VACUUM if VERBOSE is given.
   It is OK to return NULL if the index was not changed at all during the
   VACUUM operation, but otherwise correct stats should
   be returned.
  
   As of PostgreSQL 8.4,
   amvacuumcleanup will also be called at completion of an
   ANALYZE operation.  In this case stats is always
   NULL and any return value will be ignored.  This case can be distinguished
   by checking info->analyze_only.  It is recommended
   that the access method do nothing except post-insert cleanup in such a
   call, and that only in an autovacuum worker process.
  
bool amcanreturn (Relation indexRelation, int attno);
Check whether the index can support index-only scans on the given column, by returning the indexed column values for an index entry in the form of an IndexTuple. The attribute number is 1-based, i.e. the first column's attno is 1. Returns TRUE if supported, else FALSE. If the access method does not support index-only scans at all, the amcanreturn field in its IndexAmRoutine struct can be set to NULL.
void
amcostestimate (PlannerInfo *root,
                IndexPath *path,
                double loop_count,
                Cost *indexStartupCost,
                Cost *indexTotalCost,
                Selectivity *indexSelectivity,
                double *indexCorrelation);Estimate the costs of an index scan. This function is described fully in Section 59.6, below.
bytea *
amoptions (ArrayType *reloptions,
           bool validate);Parse and validate the reloptions array for an index. This is called only when a non-null reloptions array exists for the index. reloptions is a text array containing entries of the form name=value. The function should construct a bytea value, which will be copied into the rd_options field of the index's relcache entry. The data contents of the bytea value are open for the access method to define; most of the standard access methods use struct StdRdOptions. When validate is true, the function should report a suitable error message if any of the options are unrecognized or have invalid values; when validate is false, invalid entries should be silently ignored. (validate is false when loading options already stored in pg_catalog; an invalid entry could only be found if the access method has changed its rules for options, and in that case ignoring obsolete entries is appropriate.) It is OK to return NULL if default behavior is wanted.
bool
amproperty (Oid index_oid, int attno,
            IndexAMProperty prop, const char *propname,
            bool *res, bool *isnull);
   The amproperty method allows index access methods to override
   the default behavior of pg_index_column_has_property
   and related functions.
   If the access method does not have any special behavior for index property
   inquiries, the amproperty field in
   its IndexAmRoutine struct can be set to NULL.
   Otherwise, the amproperty method will be called with
   index_oid and attno both zero for
   pg_indexam_has_property calls,
   or with index_oid valid and attno zero for
   pg_index_has_property calls,
   or with index_oid valid and attno greater than
   zero for pg_index_column_has_property calls.
   prop is an enum value identifying the property being tested,
   while propname is the original property name string.
   If the core code does not recognize the property name
   then prop is AMPROP_UNKNOWN.
   Access methods can define custom property names by
   checking propname for a match (use pg_strcasecmp
   to match, for consistency with the core code); for names known to the core
   code, it's better to inspect prop.
   If the amproperty method returns true then
   it has determined the property test result: it must set *res
   to the boolean value to return, or set *isnull
   to true to return a NULL.  (Both of the referenced variables
   are initialized to false before the call.)
   If the amproperty method returns false then
   the core code will proceed with its normal logic for determining the
   property test result.
  
Access methods that support ordering operators should implement AMPROP_DISTANCE_ORDERABLE property testing, as the core code does not know how to do that and will return NULL. It may also be advantageous to implement AMPROP_RETURNABLE testing, if that can be done more cheaply than by opening the index and calling amcanreturn, which is the core code's default behavior. The default behavior should be satisfactory for all other standard properties.
bool amvalidate (Oid opclassoid);
   Validate the catalog entries for the specified operator class, so far as
   the access method can reasonably do that.  For example, this might include
   testing that all required support functions are provided.
   The amvalidate function must return false if the opclass is
   invalid.  Problems should be reported with ereport messages.
  
The purpose of an index, of course, is to support scans for tuples matching an indexable WHERE condition, often called a qualifier or scan key. The semantics of index scanning are described more fully in Section 59.3, below. An index access method can support "plain" index scans, "bitmap" index scans, or both. The scan-related functions that an index access method must or may provide are:
IndexScanDesc
ambeginscan (Relation indexRelation,
             int nkeys,
             int norderbys);
   Prepare for an index scan.  The nkeys and norderbys
   parameters indicate the number of quals and ordering operators that will be
   used in the scan; these may be useful for space allocation purposes.
   Note that the actual values of the scan keys aren't provided yet.
   The result must be a palloc'd struct.
   For implementation reasons the index access method
   must create this struct by calling
   RelationGetIndexScan().  In most cases
   ambeginscan does little beyond making that call and perhaps
   acquiring locks;
   the interesting parts of index-scan startup are in amrescan.
  
void
amrescan (IndexScanDesc scan,
          ScanKey keys,
          int nkeys,
          ScanKey orderbys,
          int norderbys);
   Start or restart an index scan, possibly with new scan keys.  (To restart
   using previously-passed keys, NULL is passed for keys and/or
   orderbys.)  Note that it is not allowed for
   the number of keys or order-by operators to be larger than
   what was passed to ambeginscan.  In practice the restart
   feature is used when a new outer tuple is selected by a nested-loop join
   and so a new key comparison value is needed, but the scan key structure
   remains the same.
  
boolean
amgettuple (IndexScanDesc scan,
            ScanDirection direction);
   Fetch the next tuple in the given scan, moving in the given
   direction (forward or backward in the index).  Returns TRUE if a tuple was
   obtained, FALSE if no matching tuples remain.  In the TRUE case the tuple
   TID is stored into the scan structure.  Note that
   "success" means only that the index contains an entry that matches
   the scan keys, not that the tuple necessarily still exists in the heap or
   will pass the caller's snapshot test.  On success, amgettuple
   must also set scan->xs_recheck to TRUE or FALSE.
   FALSE means it is certain that the index entry matches the scan keys.
   TRUE means this is not certain, and the conditions represented by the
   scan keys must be rechecked against the heap tuple after fetching it.
   This provision supports "lossy" index operators.
   Note that rechecking will extend only to the scan conditions; a partial
   index predicate (if any) is never rechecked by amgettuple
   callers.
  
   If the index supports index-only
   scans (i.e., amcanreturn returns TRUE for it),
   then on success the AM must also check
   scan->xs_want_itup, and if that is true it must return
   the original indexed data for the index entry, in the form of an
   IndexTuple pointer stored at scan->xs_itup,
   with tuple descriptor scan->xs_itupdesc.
   (Management of the data referenced by the pointer is the access method's
   responsibility.  The data must remain good at least until the next
   amgettuple, amrescan, or amendscan
   call for the scan.)
  
   The amgettuple function need only be provided if the access
   method supports "plain" index scans.  If it doesn't, the
   amgettuple field in its IndexAmRoutine
   struct must be set to NULL.
  
int64
amgetbitmap (IndexScanDesc scan,
             TIDBitmap *tbm);
   Fetch all tuples in the given scan and add them to the caller-supplied
   TIDBitmap (that is, OR the set of tuple IDs into whatever set is already
   in the bitmap).  The number of tuples fetched is returned (this might be
   just an approximate count, for instance some AMs do not detect duplicates).
   While inserting tuple IDs into the bitmap, amgetbitmap can
   indicate that rechecking of the scan conditions is required for specific
   tuple IDs.  This is analogous to the xs_recheck output parameter
   of amgettuple.  Note: in the current implementation, support
   for this feature is conflated with support for lossy storage of the bitmap
   itself, and therefore callers recheck both the scan conditions and the
   partial index predicate (if any) for recheckable tuples.  That might not
   always be true, however.
   amgetbitmap and
   amgettuple cannot be used in the same index scan; there
   are other restrictions too when using amgetbitmap, as explained
   in Section 59.3.
  
   The amgetbitmap function need only be provided if the access
   method supports "bitmap" index scans.  If it doesn't, the
   amgetbitmap field in its IndexAmRoutine
   struct must be set to NULL.
  
void amendscan (IndexScanDesc scan);
   End a scan and release resources.  The scan struct itself
   should not be freed, but any locks or pins taken internally by the
   access method must be released, as well as any other memory allocated
   by ambeginscan and other scan-related functions.
  
void ammarkpos (IndexScanDesc scan);
Mark current scan position. The access method need only support one remembered scan position per scan.
   The ammarkpos function need only be provided if the access
   method supports ordered scans.  If it doesn't,
   the ammarkpos field in its IndexAmRoutine
   struct may be set to NULL.
  
void amrestrpos (IndexScanDesc scan);
Restore the scan to the most recently marked position.
   The amrestrpos function need only be provided if the access
   method supports ordered scans.  If it doesn't,
   the amrestrpos field in its IndexAmRoutine
   struct may be set to NULL.