Modify local buffer management to request memory for local buffers in blocks

of increasing size, instead of one at a time.  This reduces the memory
management overhead when num_temp_buffers is large: in the previous coding
we would actually waste 50% of the space used for temp buffers, because aset.c
would round the individual requests up to 16K.  Problem noted while studying
a performance issue reported by Steven Flatt.

Back-patch as far as 8.1 --- older versions used few enough local buffers
that the issue isn't significant for them.

diff --git a/src/backend/storage/buffer/localbuf.c b/src/backend/storage/buffer/localbuf.c
index 31d5c27e793e0c87db22ed619cb04a22b4e47d8b..36dd50e71fa2db9e99739b1deaf92e2a8e0d7509 100644 (file)
--- a/src/backend/storage/buffer/localbuf.c
+++ b/src/backend/storage/buffer/localbuf.c
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@
  *
  *
  * IDENTIFICATION
- *       $PostgreSQL: pgsql/src/backend/storage/buffer/localbuf.c,v 1.74 2006/03/31 23:32:06 tgl Exp $
+ *       $PostgreSQL: pgsql/src/backend/storage/buffer/localbuf.c,v 1.75 2006/12/27 22:31:54 tgl Exp $
  *
  *-------------------------------------------------------------------------
  */
@@ -48,6 +48,7 @@ static HTAB *LocalBufHash = NULL;
 
 
 static void InitLocalBuffers(void);
+static Block GetLocalBufferStorage(void);
 
 
 /*
@@ -167,12 +168,8 @@ LocalBufferAlloc(Relation reln, BlockNumber blockNum, bool *foundPtr)
         */
        if (LocalBufHdrGetBlock(bufHdr) == NULL)
        {
-               char       *data;
-
-               data = (char *) MemoryContextAlloc(TopMemoryContext, BLCKSZ);
-
                /* Set pointer for use by BufferGetBlock() macro */
-               LocalBufHdrGetBlock(bufHdr) = (Block) data;
+               LocalBufHdrGetBlock(bufHdr) = GetLocalBufferStorage();
        }
 
        /*
@@ -334,6 +331,54 @@ InitLocalBuffers(void)
        NLocBuffer = nbufs;
 }
 
+/*
+ * GetLocalBufferStorage - allocate memory for a local buffer
+ *
+ * The idea of this function is to aggregate our requests for storage
+ * so that the memory manager doesn't see a whole lot of relatively small
+ * requests.  Since we'll never give back a local buffer once it's created
+ * within a particular process, no point in burdening memmgr with separately
+ * managed chunks.
+ */
+static Block
+GetLocalBufferStorage(void)
+{
+       static char *cur_block = NULL;
+       static int      next_buf_in_block = 0;
+       static int      num_bufs_in_block = 0;
+       static int      total_bufs_allocated = 0;
+
+       char       *this_buf;
+
+       Assert(total_bufs_allocated < NLocBuffer);
+
+       if (next_buf_in_block >= num_bufs_in_block)
+       {
+               /* Need to make a new request to memmgr */
+               int             num_bufs;
+
+               /* Start with a 16-buffer request; subsequent ones double each time */
+               num_bufs = Max(num_bufs_in_block * 2, 16);
+               /* But not more than what we need for all remaining local bufs */
+               num_bufs = Min(num_bufs, NLocBuffer - total_bufs_allocated);
+               /* And don't overflow MaxAllocSize, either */
+               num_bufs = Min(num_bufs, MaxAllocSize / BLCKSZ);
+
+               /* Allocate space from TopMemoryContext so it never goes away */
+               cur_block = (char *) MemoryContextAlloc(TopMemoryContext,
+                                                                                               num_bufs * BLCKSZ);
+               next_buf_in_block = 0;
+               num_bufs_in_block = num_bufs;
+       }
+
+       /* Allocate next buffer in current memory block */
+       this_buf = cur_block + next_buf_in_block * BLCKSZ;
+       next_buf_in_block++;
+       total_bufs_allocated++;
+
+       return (Block) this_buf;
+}
+
 /*
  * AtEOXact_LocalBuffers - clean up at end of transaction.
  *