Don't convert Consts into Vars during setrefs.c processing.

While converting expressions in an upper-level plan node so that they
reference Vars and expressions provided by the input plan node(s),
don't convert plain Const items, even if there happens to be a matching
Const in the input.  It's silly to do so because a Var is more expensive to
execute than a Const.  Moreover, converting can fool ExecCheckPlanOutput's
check that an insert or update query inserts nulls into dropped columns,
leading to "query provides a value for a dropped column" errors during
INSERT or UPDATE on a table with a dropped column.  We could solve this
by making that check more complicated, but I don't see the point; this fix
should save a marginal number of cycles, and it also makes for less messy
EXPLAIN output, as shown by the ensuing regression test result changes.

Per report from Pavel Hanák.  I have not incorporated a test case based
on that example, as there doesn't seem to be a simple way of checking
this in isolation without making a bunch of assumptions about other
planner and SQL-function behavior.

Back-patch to 9.6.  This setrefs.c behavior exists much further back,
but there is not currently reason to think that it causes problems
before 9.6.

Discussion: <83shraampf.fsf@is-it.eu>

1 files changed, 23 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/src/backend/optimizer/plan/setrefs.c b/src/backend/optimizer/plan/setrefs.c
index d10a98396c7..d91bc3b30de 100644
--- a/src/backend/optimizer/plan/setrefs.c
+++ b/src/backend/optimizer/plan/setrefs.c
@@ -1823,6 +1823,19 @@ set_dummy_tlist_references(Plan *plan, int rtoffset)
 		Var		   *oldvar = (Var *) tle->expr;
 		Var		   *newvar;
 
+		/*
+		 * As in search_indexed_tlist_for_non_var(), we prefer to keep Consts
+		 * as Consts, not Vars referencing Consts.  Here, there's no speed
+		 * advantage to be had, but it makes EXPLAIN output look cleaner, and
+		 * again it avoids confusing the executor.
+		 */
+		if (IsA(oldvar, Const))
+		{
+			/* just reuse the existing TLE node */
+			output_targetlist = lappend(output_targetlist, tle);
+			continue;
+		}
+
 		newvar = makeVar(OUTER_VAR,
 						 tle->resno,
 						 exprType((Node *) oldvar),
@@ -2010,6 +2023,16 @@ search_indexed_tlist_for_non_var(Node *node,
 {
 	TargetEntry *tle;
 
+	/*
+	 * If it's a simple Const, replacing it with a Var is silly, even if there
+	 * happens to be an identical Const below; a Var is more expensive to
+	 * execute than a Const.  What's more, replacing it could confuse some
+	 * places in the executor that expect to see simple Consts for, eg,
+	 * dropped columns.
+	 */
+	if (IsA(node, Const))
+		return NULL;
+
 	tle = tlist_member(node, itlist->tlist);
 	if (tle)
 	{