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The original implementation of TABLESAMPLE modeled the tablesample method API on index access methods, which wasn't a good choice because, without specialized DDL commands, there's no way to build an extension that can implement a TSM. (Raw inserts into system catalogs are not an acceptable thing to do, because we can't undo them during DROP EXTENSION, nor will pg_upgrade behave sanely.) Instead adopt an API more like procedural language handlers or foreign data wrappers, wherein the only SQL-level support object needed is a single handler function identified by having a special return type. This lets us get rid of the supporting catalog altogether, so that no custom DDL support is needed for the feature. Adjust the API so that it can support non-constant tablesample arguments (the original coding assumed we could evaluate the argument expressions at ExecInitSampleScan time, which is undesirable even if it weren't outright unsafe), and discourage sampling methods from looking at invisible tuples. Make sure that the BERNOULLI and SYSTEM methods are genuinely repeatable within and across queries, as required by the SQL standard, and deal more honestly with methods that can't support that requirement. Make a full code-review pass over the tablesample additions, and fix assorted bugs, omissions, infelicities, and cosmetic issues (such as failure to put the added code stanzas in a consistent ordering). Improve EXPLAIN's output of tablesample plans, too. Back-patch to 9.5 so that we don't have to support the original API in production.
The PostgreSQL contrib tree
---------------------------
This subtree contains porting tools, analysis utilities, and plug-in
features that are not part of the core PostgreSQL system, mainly
because they address a limited audience or are too experimental to be
part of the main source tree. This does not preclude their
usefulness.
User documentation for each module appears in the main SGML
documentation.
When building from the source distribution, these modules are not
built automatically, unless you build the "world" target. You can
also build and install them all by running "make all" and "make
install" in this directory; or to build and install just one selected
module, do the same in that module's subdirectory.
Some directories supply new user-defined functions, operators, or
types. To make use of one of these modules, after you have installed
the code you need to register the new SQL objects in the database
system by executing a CREATE EXTENSION command. In a fresh database,
you can simply do
CREATE EXTENSION module_name;
See the PostgreSQL documentation for more information about this
procedure.