[Pljava-dev] Portal object leak

[Ryan Holmes]

No problem at all, thank you for getting back to me.

If you think this is on the Java side, I'll be happy to try to debug  
and fix it. But if it's a problem in the native code, my C/C++ skills  
are, well let's just call them "nonexistent".

I've been assuming that the problem is in the native code because  
heap analysis with jhat shows that the Portal objects are JNI global  
references without any referrers. Of course, this could simply mean  
that the PL/Java JDBC code is failing to call a native cleanup  
method. I guess I'm asking for some basic pointers to what the  
problem might be in theory before I jump in.

A few specific questions:

1.) With very little C experience, am I wasting my time trying to fix  
the issue? I'm just asking for your best guess.

2.) What the heck is a Portal object anyway? Is it a handle to a  
result set / cursor?

3.) I noticed there was an update to SPIStatement.java and  
SPIDatabaseMetaData.java about 3.5 months ago with the commit message  
"Fixed some issues with Meta-data." The updates look like they might  
be relevant. Are these updates included in 1.3.0 and/or in the  
version of PL/Java that ships with the PG 8.2 Windows installer? I  
guess the real question is, am I debugging a problem that's already  
been fixed? Since I'm on Windows here and haven't used MinGW before,  
I haven't even tried compiling from HEAD.

4.) Would you be open to accepting payment to fix this yourself or do  
you simply not have the time? We (my company) think PL/Java is an  
ideal solution for our DB logic and it seems quite robust in all but  
this one area, so dedicating some of my time and/or paying for a fix  
is definitely on the table.


FYI, I've worked around most of the problem by using local caching to  
avoid repeated calls to DatabaseMetaData.getPrimaryKeys() and  
getImportedKeys(). This solves about 80% of the leak. The other 20%  
(also in the form of Portal objects) is still somewhat of a mystery  
to me. It seems to happen on JDBC query executions inside the  
triggers but I haven't been able to reproduce it in a clean  
environment, so I'll come back to it later.

Sorry for the long email and thank you for your time,
-Ryan

On Jan 16, 2007, at 11:57 AM, Thomas Hallgren wrote:

> Hi Ryan,
> Sorry for late reply. I find myself constantly tied up in other  
> activities these days. If you have the time to create a patch for  
> this I'd be happy to review it.
>
> Kind Regards,
> Thomas Hallgren
>
>
>
> Ryan Holmes wrote:
>> Found one source of the problem. Filed as http:// 
>> gborg.postgresql.org/ project/pljava/bugs/bugupdate.php?1624
>> -Ryan
>> On Jan 12, 2007, at 7:54 PM, Ryan Holmes wrote:
>>> I have a PL/Java trigger that leaks a large number of
>>> org.postgresql.pljava.internal.Portal objects. The leak occurs under
>>> PostgreSQL 8.1 with PL/Java 1.3.0 and under 8.2 with the version of
>>> PL/Java that is included with the Windows installer. I get the same
>>> results with multiple versions of Windows (XP and Server 2003)  
>>> and  with
>>> 1.5 and 1.6 JVMs.
>>>
>>> So far, my attempts to isolate the leak have been fruitless (the  
>>> code
>>> path is about 500 lines). I can say that from a pure Java  
>>> perspective,
>>> there is no obvious reason for the leak. Furthermore, the only
>>> references to the Portal objects are JNI global references so  
>>> there is
>>> no chain of references from our code to these objects.
>>>
>>> Does anyone know what could cause PL/Java to create Portal  
>>> objects but
>>> not clean them up? At this point, I'm not even sure what I'm   
>>> looking for
>>> and the only option I have left is to rebuild or comment out the  
>>> code
>>> "one line at a time" until I can isolate the behavior.
>>>
>>> I don't mind posting the code in question (it's a set of auditing
>>> triggers and supporting methods) but, as I mentioned, there's  
>>> quite a
>>> bit of it.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> -Ryan
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Pljava-dev mailing list
>>> Pljava-dev at gborg.postgresql.org
>>> http://gborg.postgresql.org/mailman/listinfo/pljava-dev
>