PostgreSQL 9.5.3 Documentation
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# 54.4. Foreign Data Wrapper Query Planning

The FDW callback functions `GetForeignRelSize`, `GetForeignPaths`, `GetForeignPlan`, `PlanForeignModify`, and `GetForeignJoinPaths` must fit into the workings of the PostgreSQL planner. Here are some notes about what they must do.

The information in `root` and `baserel` can be used to reduce the amount of information that has to be fetched from the foreign table (and therefore reduce the cost). `baserel->baserestrictinfo` is particularly interesting, as it contains restriction quals (`WHERE` clauses) that should be used to filter the rows to be fetched. (The FDW itself is not required to enforce these quals, as the core executor can check them instead.) `baserel->reltargetlist` can be used to determine which columns need to be fetched; but note that it only lists columns that have to be emitted by the `ForeignScan` plan node, not columns that are used in qual evaluation but not output by the query.

Various private fields are available for the FDW planning functions to keep information in. Generally, whatever you store in FDW private fields should be palloc'd, so that it will be reclaimed at the end of planning.

`baserel->fdw_private` is a `void` pointer that is available for FDW planning functions to store information relevant to the particular foreign table. The core planner does not touch it except to initialize it to NULL when the `RelOptInfo` node is created. It is useful for passing information forward from `GetForeignRelSize` to `GetForeignPaths` and/or `GetForeignPaths` to `GetForeignPlan`, thereby avoiding recalculation.

`GetForeignPaths` can identify the meaning of different access paths by storing private information in the `fdw_private` field of `ForeignPath` nodes. `fdw_private` is declared as a `List` pointer, but could actually contain anything since the core planner does not touch it. However, best practice is to use a representation that's dumpable by `nodeToString`, for use with debugging support available in the backend.

`GetForeignPlan` can examine the `fdw_private` field of the selected `ForeignPath` node, and can generate `fdw_exprs` and `fdw_private` lists to be placed in the `ForeignScan` plan node, where they will be available at execution time. Both of these lists must be represented in a form that `copyObject` knows how to copy. The `fdw_private` list has no other restrictions and is not interpreted by the core backend in any way. The `fdw_exprs` list, if not NIL, is expected to contain expression trees that are intended to be executed at run time. These trees will undergo post-processing by the planner to make them fully executable.

In `GetForeignPlan`, generally the passed-in target list can be copied into the plan node as-is. The passed `scan_clauses` list contains the same clauses as `baserel->baserestrictinfo`, but may be re-ordered for better execution efficiency. In simple cases the FDW can just strip `RestrictInfo` nodes from the `scan_clauses` list (using `extract_actual_clauses`) and put all the clauses into the plan node's qual list, which means that all the clauses will be checked by the executor at run time. More complex FDWs may be able to check some of the clauses internally, in which case those clauses can be removed from the plan node's qual list so that the executor doesn't waste time rechecking them.

As an example, the FDW might identify some restriction clauses of the form `foreign_variable` `=` `sub_expression`, which it determines can be executed on the remote server given the locally-evaluated value of the `sub_expression`. The actual identification of such a clause should happen during `GetForeignPaths`, since it would affect the cost estimate for the path. The path's `fdw_private` field would probably include a pointer to the identified clause's `RestrictInfo` node. Then `GetForeignPlan` would remove that clause from `scan_clauses`, but add the `sub_expression` to `fdw_exprs` to ensure that it gets massaged into executable form. It would probably also put control information into the plan node's `fdw_private` field to tell the execution functions what to do at run time. The query transmitted to the remote server would involve something like `WHERE `foreign_variable` = $1`, with the parameter value obtained at run time from evaluation of the `fdw_exprs` expression tree.

Any clauses removed from the plan node's qual list must instead be added to `fdw_recheck_quals` or rechecked by `RecheckForeignScan` in order to ensure correct behavior at the `READ COMMITTED` isolation level. When a concurrent update occurs for some other table involved in the query, the executor may need to verify that all of the original quals are still satisfied for the tuple, possibly against a different set of parameter values. Using `fdw_recheck_quals` is typically easier than implementing checks inside `RecheckForeignScan`, but this method will be insufficient when outer joins have been pushed down, since the join tuples in that case might have some fields go to NULL without rejecting the tuple entirely.

Another `ForeignScan` field that can be filled by FDWs is `fdw_scan_tlist`, which describes the tuples returned by the FDW for this plan node. For simple foreign table scans this can be set to `NIL`, implying that the returned tuples have the row type declared for the foreign table. A non-`NIL` value must be a target list (list of `TargetEntry`s) containing Vars and/or expressions representing the returned columns. This might be used, for example, to show that the FDW has omitted some columns that it noticed won't be needed for the query. Also, if the FDW can compute expressions used by the query more cheaply than can be done locally, it could add those expressions to `fdw_scan_tlist`. Note that join plans (created from paths made by `GetForeignJoinPaths`) must always supply `fdw_scan_tlist` to describe the set of columns they will return.

The FDW should always construct at least one path that depends only on the table's restriction clauses. In join queries, it might also choose to construct path(s) that depend on join clauses, for example `foreign_variable` `=` `local_variable`. Such clauses will not be found in `baserel->baserestrictinfo` but must be sought in the relation's join lists. A path using such a clause is called a "parameterized path". It must identify the other relations used in the selected join clause(s) with a suitable value of `param_info`; use `get_baserel_parampathinfo` to compute that value. In `GetForeignPlan`, the `local_variable` portion of the join clause would be added to `fdw_exprs`, and then at run time the case works the same as for an ordinary restriction clause.

If an FDW supports remote joins, `GetForeignJoinPaths` should produce `ForeignPath`s for potential remote joins in much the same way as `GetForeignPaths` works for base tables. Information about the intended join can be passed forward to `GetForeignPlan` in the same ways described above. However, `baserestrictinfo` is not relevant for join relations; instead, the relevant join clauses for a particular join are passed to `GetForeignJoinPaths` as a separate parameter (`extra->restrictlist`).

When planning an `UPDATE` or `DELETE`, `PlanForeignModify` can look up the `RelOptInfo` struct for the foreign table and make use of the `baserel->fdw_private` data previously created by the scan-planning functions. However, in `INSERT` the target table is not scanned so there is no `RelOptInfo` for it. The `List` returned by `PlanForeignModify` has the same restrictions as the `fdw_private` list of a `ForeignScan` plan node, that is it must contain only structures that `copyObject` knows how to copy.

`INSERT` with an `ON CONFLICT` clause does not support specifying the conflict target, as unique constraints or exclusion constraints on remote tables are not locally known. This in turn implies that `ON CONFLICT DO UPDATE` is not supported, since the specification is mandatory there.

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