Commit 29ad6595 authored by Heikki Linnakangas's avatar Heikki Linnakangas

doc: Copy-edit the "Overview of PostgreSQL Internals" chapter

Rephrase a few sentences to be more concise.

Refer to the postmaster process as "postmaster", not "postgres". This
originally said "postmaster process", but was changed to "postgres
process" in commit 5266f221, when we merged the "postmaster" and
"postgres" commands, and "postmaster" became just a symlink. That was a
case of overzealous search & replace, because the process is still called
"postmaster".

Author: Erik Rijkers and Jürgen Purtz
Discussion: https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/aa31f359-1168-ded5-53d0-0ed228bfe097%40iki.fi
parent af0e79c8
......@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@
<title>Author</title>
<para>
This chapter originated as part of
<xref linkend="sim98"/>, Stefan Simkovics'
<xref linkend="sim98"/> Stefan Simkovics'
Master's Thesis prepared at Vienna University of Technology under the direction
of O.Univ.Prof.Dr. Georg Gottlob and Univ.Ass. Mag. Katrin Seyr.
</para>
......@@ -17,10 +17,7 @@
This chapter gives an overview of the internal structure of the
backend of <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>. After having
read the following sections you should have an idea of how a query
is processed. This chapter does not aim to provide a detailed
description of the internal operation of
<productname>PostgreSQL</productname>, as such a document would be
very extensive. Rather, this chapter is intended to help the reader
is processed. This chapter is intended to help the reader
understand the general sequence of operations that occur within the
backend from the point at which a query is received, to the point
at which the results are returned to the client.
......@@ -30,8 +27,8 @@
<title>The Path of a Query</title>
<para>
Here we give a short overview of the stages a query has to pass in
order to obtain a result.
Here we give a short overview of the stages a query has to pass
to obtain a result.
</para>
<procedure>
......@@ -125,10 +122,10 @@
use a <firstterm>supervisor process</firstterm> (also
<firstterm>master process</firstterm>) that spawns a new
server process every time a connection is requested. This supervisor
process is called <literal>postgres</literal> and listens at a
process is called <literal>postmaster</literal> and listens at a
specified TCP/IP port for incoming connections. Whenever a request
for a connection is detected the <literal>postgres</literal>
process spawns a new server process. The server tasks
for a connection is detected the <literal>postmaster</literal>
process spawns a new server process. The server processes
communicate with each other using <firstterm>semaphores</firstterm> and
<firstterm>shared memory</firstterm> to ensure data integrity
throughout concurrent data access.
......@@ -230,7 +227,7 @@
<para>
A detailed description of <application>bison</application> or
the grammar rules given in <filename>gram.y</filename> would be
beyond the scope of this paper. There are many books and
beyond the scope of this manual. There are many books and
documents dealing with <application>flex</application> and
<application>bison</application>. You should be familiar with
<application>bison</application> before you start to study the
......@@ -343,8 +340,8 @@
<note>
<para>
In some situations, examining each possible way in which a query
can be executed would take an excessive amount of time and memory
space. In particular, this occurs when executing queries
can be executed would take an excessive amount of time and memory.
In particular, this occurs when executing queries
involving large numbers of join operations. In order to determine
a reasonable (not necessarily optimal) query plan in a reasonable amount
of time, <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> uses a <firstterm>Genetic
......@@ -411,7 +408,7 @@
<firstterm>merge join</firstterm>: Each relation is sorted on the join
attributes before the join starts. Then the two relations are
scanned in parallel, and matching rows are combined to form
join rows. This kind of join is more
join rows. This kind of join is
attractive because each relation has to be scanned only once.
The required sorting might be achieved either by an explicit sort
step, or by scanning the relation in the proper order using an
......@@ -442,7 +439,7 @@
If the query uses fewer than <xref linkend="guc-geqo-threshold"/>
relations, a near-exhaustive search is conducted to find the best
join sequence. The planner preferentially considers joins between any
two relations for which there exist a corresponding join clause in the
two relations for which there exists a corresponding join clause in the
<literal>WHERE</literal> qualification (i.e., for
which a restriction like <literal>where rel1.attr1=rel2.attr2</literal>
exists). Join pairs with no join clause are considered only when there
......
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