63.3. Extensibility
TheGIN interface has a high level of abstraction, requiring the access method implementer only to implement the semantics of the data type being accessed. TheGIN layer itself takes care of concurrency, logging and searching the tree structure.
All it takes to get aGIN access method working is to implement a few user-defined methods, which define the behavior of keys in the tree and the relationships between keys, indexed items, and indexable queries. In short,GIN combines extensibility with generality, code reuse, and a clean interface.
There are two methods that an operator class forGIN must provide:
Datum *extractValue(Datum itemValue, int32 *nkeys, bool **nullFlags)
Datum *extractQuery(Datum query, int32 *nkeys, StrategyNumber n, bool **pmatch, Pointer **extra_data, bool **nullFlags, int32 *searchMode)
Returns a palloc'd array of keys given a value to be queried; that is,
query
is the value on the right-hand side of an indexable operator whose left-hand side is the indexed column.n
is the strategy number of the operator within the operator class (seeSection 36.16.2). Often,extractQuery
will need to consultn
to determine the data type ofquery
and the method it should use to extract key values. The number of returned keys must be stored into*nkeys
. If any of the keys can be null, also palloc an array of*nkeys
bool
fields, store its address at*nullFlags
, and set these null flags as needed.*nullFlags
can be leftNULL
(its initial value) if all keys are non-null. The return value can beNULL
if thequery
contains no keys.searchMode
is an output argument that allowsextractQuery
to specify details about how the search will be done. If*searchMode
is set toGIN_SEARCH_MODE_DEFAULT
(which is the value it is initialized to before call), only items that match at least one of the returned keys are considered candidate matches. If*searchMode
is set toGIN_SEARCH_MODE_INCLUDE_EMPTY
, then in addition to items containing at least one matching key, items that contain no keys at all are considered candidate matches. (This mode is useful for implementing is-subset-of operators, for example.) If*searchMode
is set toGIN_SEARCH_MODE_ALL
, then all non-null items in the index are considered candidate matches, whether they match any of the returned keys or not. (This mode is much slower than the other two choices, since it requires scanning essentially the entire index, but it may be necessary to implement corner cases correctly. An operator that needs this mode in most cases is probably not a good candidate for a GIN operator class.) The symbols to use for setting this mode are defined inaccess/gin.h
.pmatch
is an output argument for use when partial match is supported. To use it,extractQuery
must allocate an array of*nkeys
bool
s and store its address at*pmatch
. Each element of the array should be set to true if the corresponding key requires partial match, false if not. If*pmatch
is set toNULL
then GIN assumes partial match is not required. The variable is initialized toNULL
before call, so this argument can simply be ignored by operator classes that do not support partial match.extra_data
is an output argument that allowsextractQuery
to pass additional data to theconsistent
andcomparePartial
methods. To use it,extractQuery
must allocate an array of*nkeys
pointers and store its address at*extra_data
, then store whatever it wants to into the individual pointers. The variable is initialized toNULL
before call, so this argument can simply be ignored by operator classes that do not require extra data. If*extra_data
is set, the whole array is passed to theconsistent
method, and the appropriate element to thecomparePartial
method.
An operator class must also provide a function to check if an indexed item matches the query. It comes in two flavors, a Booleanconsistent
function, and a ternarytriConsistent
function.triConsistent
covers the functionality of both, so providingtriConsistent
alone is sufficient. However, if the Boolean variant is significantly cheaper to calculate, it can be advantageous to provide both. If only the Boolean variant is provided, some optimizations that depend on refuting index items before fetching all the keys are disabled.
bool consistent(bool check[], StrategyNumber n, Datum query, int32 nkeys, Pointer extra_data[], bool *recheck, Datum queryKeys[], bool nullFlags[])
Returns true if an indexed item satisfies the query operator with strategy number
n
(or might satisfy it, if the recheck indication is returned). This function does not have direct access to the indexed item's value, sinceGIN does not store items explicitly. Rather, what is available is knowledge about which key values extracted from the query appear in a given indexed item. Thecheck
array has lengthnkeys
, which is the same as the number of keys previously returned byextractQuery
for thisquery
datum. Each element of thecheck
array is true if the indexed item contains the corresponding query key, i.e., if (check[i] == true) the i-th key of theextractQuery
result array is present in the indexed item. The originalquery
datum is passed in case theconsistent
method needs to consult it, and so are thequeryKeys[]
andnullFlags[]
arrays previously returned byextractQuery
.extra_data
is the extra-data array returned byextractQuery
, orNULL
if none.GinTernaryValue triConsistent(GinTernaryValue check[], StrategyNumber n, Datum query, int32 nkeys, Pointer extra_data[], Datum queryKeys[], bool nullFlags[])
Optionally, an operator class forGIN can supply the following method:
To support“partial match” queries, an operator class must provide thecomparePartial
method, and itsextractQuery
method must set thepmatch
parameter when a partial-match query is encountered. SeeSection 63.4.2 for details.
The actual data types of the variousDatum
values mentioned above vary depending on the operator class. The item values passed toextractValue
are always of the operator class's input type, and all key values must be of the class'sSTORAGE
type. The type of thequery
argument passed toextractQuery
,consistent
andtriConsistent
is whatever is the right-hand input type of the class member operator identified by the strategy number. This need not be the same as the indexed type, so long as key values of the correct type can be extracted from it. However, it is recommended that the SQL declarations of these three support functions use the opclass's indexed data type for thequery
argument, even though the actual type might be something else depending on the operator.