GiST news and prospects: Andrey Borodin - PGCon 2023

Discover the latest GiST news, features, and prospects at PGCon 2023, covering advancements in search efficiency, operator class support, spatial access, and more, in this informative conference talk.

Key takeaways
  • GiST news and prospects:
    • The GiST (Generalized Search Tree) was initially brought into Postgres for data types with natural sort order, making searches more efficient.
    • Gist 15, the default index in Postgres 3.3, is an order of magnitude faster than GiST before.
    • New GiST features include operator class support, spectral feature based on GCB, and support for aggregations.
    • The GiST tree was designed to be extensible, allowing further enhancements.
    • Gist updates include support for spatial access, covering indexes, and bitmap sets with unsigned integers.
    • GiST 15 is almost twice smaller and has faster index creation and search.
    • GiST can be used for different areas of interest, such as mapping information.
    • Improvements were made to GiST API support, allowing it to be used for more performant spatial indexing.
    • The GiST tree was able to reuse deleted pages.
    • Fill factor was optimized, leading to faster search performance.
    • The GiST-based sorting was improved, leading to speedier indexing.