I solved the issue by doing the following LOCK TABLE <CHILD_TABLE> NOWAIT Trap the exception. Sleep for a while Repeat lock table until exception is not thrown Then issue a drop table cascade (or truncate) This appears to be the only way to issue truncate/drop table on a child table ....The application involves heavy writes/reads on the parent table and truncate <child> table seems to cause a deadlock every time a shared lock exists on the parent table -----Original Message----- From: pgsql-admin-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:pgsql-admin-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Tom Lane Sent: Monday, June 19, 2006 6:24 PM To: Sriram Dandapani Cc: pgsql-admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: [ADMIN] truncate partitioned table locking "Sriram Dandapani" <sdandapani@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > How can I issue a truncate /drop table on the child without running into > locking issues. Doesn't constraint exclusion prevent access of a child > table based on the check constraint criteria No, because the planner has to access the child table in order to examine its constraints. (Since TRUNCATE is a metadata update, the fact that the constraints are metadata not content doesn't help.) TRUNCATE in itself is fast enough that you shouldn't really have any problems here. If you are having locking issues then I suspect you need to look for transactions that are sitting on ordinary reader or writer locks of the table, instead of doing their jobs and committing. regards, tom lane ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 3: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq
