Обсуждение: MultiXactId concept underdocumented
The new MultiXactId concept appears in a number of user-facing error messages, including in the scary context of transaction ID wraparound, so it seems kind of important, but it doesn't appear to be documented in any user-facing places. Should this be rectified? Maybe some of the material from README.tuplock should be moved to the user manual. Maybe a less jargony term could be found as well.
Hi, On 2013-08-07 21:25:06 -0400, Peter Eisentraut wrote: > The new MultiXactId concept appears in a number of user-facing error > messages, including in the scary context of transaction ID wraparound, > so it seems kind of important, but it doesn't appear to be documented in > any user-facing places. Should this be rectified? Maybe some of the > material from README.tuplock should be moved to the user manual. Maybe > a less jargony term could be found as well. Multixacts aren't really new, they've been there since 8.1 or so. It's just that their use has been a bit expanded and that their internal format changed a bit. WRT user facing messages: I think it'd suffice to explain the anti-wraparound part of the docs that the same holds true for multixacts. Doing a more detailed explanation seems to require a good amount of low level explanations and thus seems unlikely to be actually read. Greetings, Andres Freund -- Andres Freund http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training & Services
Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> writes: > The new MultiXactId concept appears in a number of user-facing error > messages, including in the scary context of transaction ID wraparound, > so it seems kind of important, but it doesn't appear to be documented in > any user-facing places. Should this be rectified? Maybe some of the > material from README.tuplock should be moved to the user manual. Maybe > a less jargony term could be found as well. In some other Open Source Product Documentations, I've found it very useful to have a "Glossary" chapter, e.g. http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Glossary.html#Glossary I think we should consider doing that, mainly copy/pasting definitions we already have here and there at the beginning of chapters and sections, and maintain a full Glossary of the technical terms in use within our product and that you must understand to be able to use it, either as a developer or a dba or a sysadmin. Regards, -- Dimitri Fontaine http://2ndQuadrant.fr PostgreSQL : Expertise, Formation et Support