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PostgreSQL documentation
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<refentry id="SQL-REINDEX">
 <refmeta>
  <refentrytitle id="SQL-REINDEX-TITLE">REINDEX</refentrytitle>
  <refmiscinfo>SQL - Language Statements</refmiscinfo>
 </refmeta>

 <refnamediv>
  <refname>REINDEX</refname>
  <refpurpose>rebuild indexes</refpurpose>
 </refnamediv>

 <indexterm zone="sql-reindex">
  <primary>REINDEX</primary>
 </indexterm>

 <refsynopsisdiv>
<synopsis>
REINDEX { DATABASE | TABLE | INDEX } <replaceable class="PARAMETER">name</replaceable> [ FORCE ]
</synopsis>
 </refsynopsisdiv>

 <refsect1>
  <title>Description</title>

  <para>
   <command>REINDEX</command> rebuilds an index based on the data
   stored in the index's table, replacing the old copy of the index. There are
   two main reasons to use <command>REINDEX</command>:

   <itemizedlist>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      An index has become corrupted, and no longer contains valid
      data. Although in theory this should never happen, in
      practice indexes may become corrupted due to software bugs or
      hardware failures.  <command>REINDEX</command> provides a
      recovery method.
     </para>
    </listitem>

    <listitem>
     <para>
      The index in question contains a lot of dead index pages that
      are not being reclaimed. This can occur with B-tree indexes in
      <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> under certain access
      patterns. <command>REINDEX</command> provides a way to reduce
      the space consumption of the index by writing a new version of
      the index without the dead pages. See <xref
      linkend="routine-reindex"> for more information.
     </para>
    </listitem>
   </itemizedlist>
  </para>
 </refsect1>
  
 <refsect1>
  <title>Parameters</title>

  <variablelist>
   <varlistentry>
    <term><literal>DATABASE</literal></term>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      Recreate all system indexes of a specified database. Indexes on
      user tables are not processed.  Also, indexes on shared system
      catalogs are skipped except in stand-alone mode (see below).
     </para>
    </listitem>
   </varlistentry>

   <varlistentry>
    <term><literal>TABLE</literal></term>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      Recreate all indexes of a specified table.  If the table has a
      secondary <quote>TOAST</> table, that is reindexed as well.
     </para>
    </listitem>
   </varlistentry>

   <varlistentry>
    <term><literal>INDEX</literal></term>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      Recreate a specified index.
     </para>
    </listitem>
   </varlistentry>

   <varlistentry>
    <term><replaceable class="PARAMETER">name</replaceable></term>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      The name of the specific database, table, or index to be
      reindexed.  Table and index names may be schema-qualified.
      Presently, <command>REINDEX DATABASE</> can only reindex the current
      database, so its parameter must match the current database's name.
     </para>
    </listitem>
   </varlistentry>

   <varlistentry>
    <term><literal>FORCE</literal></term>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      This is an obsolete option; it is ignored if specified.
     </para>
    </listitem>
   </varlistentry>
  </variablelist>
 </refsect1>

 <refsect1>
  <title>Notes</title>

  <para>
   If you suspect corruption of an index on a user table, you can
   simply rebuild that index, or all indexes on the table, using
   <command>REINDEX INDEX</command> or <command>REINDEX TABLE</command>.  
  </para>

  <para>
   Things are more difficult if you need to recover from corruption of
   an index on a system table.  In this case it's important for the
   system to not have used any of the suspect indexes itself.
   (Indeed, in this sort of scenario you may find that server
   processes are crashing immediately at start-up, due to reliance on
   the corrupted indexes.)  To recover safely, the server must be started
   with the <option>-P</option> option, which prevents it from using
   indexes for system catalog lookups.
  </para>

  <para>
   One way to do this is to shut down the postmaster and start a stand-alone
   <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> server
   with the <option>-P</option> option included on its command line.
   Then, <command>REINDEX DATABASE</>,
   <command>REINDEX TABLE</>, or <command>REINDEX INDEX</> can be
   issued, depending on how much you want to reconstruct.  If in
   doubt, use <command>REINDEX DATABASE</> to select
   reconstruction of all system indexes in the database.  Then quit
   the standalone server session and restart the regular server.
   See the <xref linkend="app-postgres"> reference page for more
   information about how to interact with the stand-alone server
   interface.
  </para>

  <para>
   Alternatively, a regular server session can be started with
   <option>-P</option> included in its command line options.
   The method for doing this varies across clients, but in all
   <application>libpq</>-based clients, it is possible to set
   the <envar>PGOPTIONS</envar> environment variable to <literal>-P</>
   before starting the client.  Note that while this method does not
   require locking out other clients, it may still be wise to prevent
   other users from connecting to the damaged database until repairs
   have been completed.
  </para>

  <para>
   If corruption is suspected in the indexes of any of the shared
   system catalogs (<structname>pg_database</structname>,
   <structname>pg_group</structname>,
   <structname>pg_shadow</structname>, or
   <structname>pg_tablespace</structname>), then a standalone server
   must be used to repair it.  <command>REINDEX</> will not process
   shared catalogs in multiuser mode.
  </para>

  <para>
   For all indexes except the shared system catalogs, <command>REINDEX</>
   is crash-safe and transaction-safe.  <command>REINDEX</> is not
   crash-safe for shared indexes, which is why this case is disallowed
   during normal operation.  If a failure occurs while reindexing one
   of these catalogs in standalone mode, it will not be possible to
   restart the regular server until the problem is rectified.  (The
   typical symptom of a partially rebuilt shared index is <quote>index is not
   a btree</> errors.)
  </para>

  <para>
   <command>REINDEX</command> is similar to a drop and recreate of the index
   in that the index contents are rebuilt from scratch.  However, the locking
   considerations are rather different.  <command>REINDEX</> locks out writes
   but not reads of the index's parent table.  It also takes an exclusive lock
   on the specific index being processed, which will block reads that attempt
   to use that index.  In contrast, <command>DROP INDEX</> momentarily takes
   exclusive lock on the parent table, blocking both writes and reads.  The
   subsequent <command>CREATE INDEX</> locks out writes but not reads; since
   the index is not there, no read will attempt to use it, meaning that there
   will be no blocking but reads may be forced into expensive sequential
   scans.  Another important point is that the drop/create approach
   invalidates any cached query plans that use the index, while
   <command>REINDEX</> does not.
  </para>

  <para>
   Prior to <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> 7.4, <command>REINDEX
   TABLE</> did not automatically process TOAST tables, and so those had
   to be reindexed by separate commands.  This is still possible, but
   redundant.
  </para>
 </refsect1>

 <refsect1>
  <title>Examples</title>

  <para>
   Recreate the indexes on the table <literal>my_table</literal>:

<programlisting>
REINDEX TABLE my_table;
</programlisting>
  </para>

  <para>
   Rebuild a single index:

<programlisting>
REINDEX INDEX my_index;
</programlisting>
  </para>

  <para>
   Rebuild all system indexes in a particular database, without trusting them
   to be valid already:

<programlisting>
$ <userinput>export PGOPTIONS="-P"</userinput>
$ <userinput>psql broken_db</userinput>
...
broken_db=> REINDEX DATABASE broken_db;
broken_db=> \q
</programlisting>
  </para>
 </refsect1>
 
 <refsect1>
  <title>Compatibility</title>

  <para>
   There is no <command>REINDEX</command> command in the SQL standard.
  </para>
 </refsect1>
</refentry>

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