Optimizer Debugging With GDB

Some useful things for debugging optimizer code with gdb.

Useful print functions

• Attachment 'dbug_print_item' not found prints the contents of Attachment 'Item' not found object into a buffer and returns pointer to it.
• Attachment 'dbug_print_sel_arg' not found prints an individual Attachment 'SEL_ARG' not found object (NOT the whole graph or tree) and returns pointer to the buffer holding the printout.

Printing the Optimizer Trace

The optimizer trace is collected as plain text. One can print the contents of the trace collected so far as follows:

printf "%s\n", thd->opt_trace->current_trace->current_json->output.str.Ptr

Printing Current Partial Join Prefix

best_access_path() is a function that adds another table to the join prefix.

When in or around that function, the following can be useful:

A macro to print the join prefix already constructed:

define bap_print_prefix
  set $i=0
  while ($i < idx)
    p join->positions[$i++].table->table->alias.Ptr
  end
end