• Bruce Momjian's avatar
    Updated text for bitmaps: · c6221db3
    Bruce Momjian authored
    <   Bitmap indexes index single columns that can be combined with other bitmap
    <   indexes to dynamically create a composite index to match a specific query.
    <   Each index is a bitmap, and the bitmaps are bitwise AND'ed or OR'ed to be
    <   combined.  They can index by tid or can be lossy requiring a scan of the
    <   heap page to find matching rows, or perhaps use a mixed solution where
    <   tids are recorded for pages with only a few matches and per-page bitmaps
    <   are used for more dense pages.  Another idea is to use a 32-bit bitmap
    <   for every page and set a bit based on the item number mod(32).
    
    >   This feature allows separate indexes to be ANDed or ORed together.  This
    >   is particularly useful for data warehousing applications that need to
    >   query the database in an many permutations.  This feature scans an index
    >   and creates an in-memory bitmap, and allows that bitmap to be combined
    >   with other bitmap created in a similar way.  The bitmap can either index
    >   all TIDs, or be lossy, meaning it records just page numbers and each
    >   page tuple has to be checked for validity in a separate pass.
    c6221db3
TODO 38.5 KB