When reading large amounts of preexisting WAL during logical decoding
using the SQL interface we possibly could fail to check interrupts in
due time. Similarly the same could happen on systems with a very high
WAL volume while creating a new logical replication slot, independent
of the used interface.
Previously these checks where only performed in xlogreader's read_page
callbacks, while waiting for new WAL to be produced. That's not
sufficient though, if there's never a need to wait. Walsender's send
loop already contains a interrupt check.
Backpatch to 9.4 where the logical decoding feature was introduced.
This feature, building on previous commits, allows the write-ahead log
stream to be decoded into a series of logical changes; that is,
inserts, updates, and deletes and the transactions which contain them.
It is capable of handling decoding even across changes to the schema
of the effected tables. The output format is controlled by a
so-called "output plugin"; an example is included. To make use of
this in a real replication system, the output plugin will need to be
modified to produce output in the format appropriate to that system,
and to perform filtering.
Currently, information can be extracted from the logical decoding
system only via SQL; future commits will add the ability to stream
changes via walsender.
Andres Freund, with review and other contributions from many other
people, including Álvaro Herrera, Abhijit Menon-Sen, Peter Gheogegan,
Kevin Grittner, Robert Haas, Heikki Linnakangas, Fujii Masao, Abhijit
Menon-Sen, Michael Paquier, Simon Riggs, Craig Ringer, and Steve
Singer.
