Commit 9f98704b authored by Simon Riggs's avatar Simon Riggs

Clarify operation of online checkpoints.

Previous comments left, but were too obscure
for such an important aspect of the system.
parent 53edb8dc
......@@ -6847,6 +6847,18 @@ LogCheckpointEnd(bool restartpoint)
* Note: flags contains other bits, of interest here only for logging purposes.
* In particular note that this routine is synchronous and does not pay
* attention to CHECKPOINT_WAIT.
*
* If !shutdown then we are writing an online checkpoint. This is a very special
* kind of operation and WAL record because the checkpoint action occurs over
* a period of time yet logically occurs at just a single LSN. The logical
* position of the WAL record (redo ptr) is the same or earlier than the
* physical position. When we replay WAL we locate the checkpoint via its
* physical position then read the redo ptr and actually start replay at the
* earlier logical position. Note that we don't write *anything* to WAL at
* the logical position, so that location could be any other kind of WAL record.
* All of this mechanism allows us to continue working while we checkpoint.
* As a result, timing of actions is critical here and be careful to note that
* this function will likely take minutes to execute on a busy system.
*/
void
CreateCheckPoint(int flags)
......
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