
> I make a guess I've got this due to parallel running of a program making
> bulk INSERTs/UPDATEs into that table. Mmm...I need a way to avoid the big
> number of unused pages in such a case. LOCK TABLE?

Only UPDATEs and DELETEs (and rolled back INSERTs) cause unused pages.
The trick for other people was to run very frequent 'VACUUM goods;'
(like every 15 seconds) on tables when relatively few rows (in small tables)
where constantly beeing updated (e.g. counters/balances).

It might be sufficient in your case though to do the 'VACUUM goods;' after 
every bulk UPDATE, like Christopher suggested. A concurrent vacuum won't 
help if each bulk update is done in one single transaction.

Andreas

Fri, 6 Sep 2002 09:33:03 +0200
"Zeugswetter Andreas SB SD" <ZeugswetterA@spardat.at>
Re: [PATCHES] Big number of "unused" pages as reported by