Chris Travers <chris.travers@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > Unless there is a sense that this is a bad idea I will submit a doc patch. I was already working on it ... I think what we want is something along this line in the "Building Indexes Concurrently" section of the CREATE INDEX ref page: *** create_index.sgml.orig Tue Feb 2 10:56:09 2016 --- create_index.sgml Tue Feb 16 10:48:38 2016 *************** CREATE [ UNIQUE ] INDEX [ CONCURRENTLY ] *** 443,448 **** --- 443,452 ---- scan starts. Concurrent index creation serially waits for each old transaction to complete using the method outlined in section <xref linkend="view-pg-locks">. + In addition, once the <command>CREATE INDEX CONCURRENTLY</> command does + complete, the index is still not immediately ready for use: it cannot + be used until all transactions that were active when index creation + started are gone. </para> <para> However, now that I look at it, the existing text in this para is kind of a mess too. That cross-reference to pg_locks, for example, seems gratuitous and confusing (because what it's pointing you at is a single sentence deeply buried in a rather long page). It's also not very clear what is meant by "Any transaction active when the second table scan starts can block concurrent index creation until it completes"; I think we need to be a little clearer about when that happens or doesn't happen. regards, tom lane -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general