sql: propagate result types to inputs during set ops with nulls and tuples

[yuzefovich]

sql: move MergeResultTypes from physicalplan package and unexport

Release note: None

sql: propagate result types to inputs in set ops with nulls and tuples

The physical planning for set operations is special because it allows
for the result types from its inputs to be of different type family in
some cases. Namely, it is ok if one input has types.Unknown whereas
the other input is of some "known" type. In order to handle such case
the execbuilder plans casts; however, currently it is not possible to
plan casts to Tuple type. As a result, the vectorized engine is not
able to execute the query because it expects the data coming from both
inputs to be of the same type.

This commit modifies the logic of reconciling the result types from both
inputs to additionally update unknown types on the inputs if the other
input is of a Tuple type. Such behavior is acceptable because in the
original plan we only expected to have NULL values, and the Tuple type
is able to handle such case too.

The problem can also be reproduced in a logic test with the row-by-row
engine in the fakedist setting. This bug was introduced in
a76ee31, and before that change we had
the following behavior: overwrite plan.ResultTypes to the merged types
and then plan a stage of distinct processors if we have UNION. This
resulted in the input spec for the input stream to distinct having
correctly set types. After the change, that was no longer the case.

Before that change the vectorized engine couldn't handle such queries
due to type mismatch during SupportsVectorized check, so we fell back
to the row-by-row engine. However, this commit makes it so that the
vectorized engine is able to execute such queries.

Fixes: #59611.

Release note (bug fix): CockroachDB previously could encounter an
internal error when performing UNION operation when the first input
resulted only in NULL values and consequent inputs produce tuples, and
this is now fixed. Only 21.1 alpha versions are affected.

[cockroach-teamcity]

This change is 

[RaduBerinde]

Doesn't the optimizer add casts when one side is Unknown and one side isn't? At the very least, the quoted example SELECT NULL UNION SELECT 1 doesn't have a problem:

[email protected]:26257/defaultdb> explain (types) select a from (select null) as t(a) union select 1;
                            info
-------------------------------------------------------------
  distribution: local
  vectorized: false

  • union
  │ columns: (a int)
  │ estimated row count: 2
  │
  ├── • values
  │     columns: (a int)
  │     size: 1 column, 1 row
  │     row 0, expr 0: (CAST((NULL)[unknown] AS INT8))[int]
  │
  └── • values
        columns: ("?column?" int)
        size: 1 column, 1 row
        row 0, expr 0: (1)[int]

The problem in the example is that we can't plan casts to tuple:

cockroach/pkg/sql/opt/exec/execbuilder/scalar.go

Line 340 in 894efb0

// TODO(radu): casts to Tuple are not supported (they can't be serialized

If we want to make this fix until that problem is solved, that's ok, but it should be clearly documented that it only addresses this narrow case.

Reviewable status: complete! 0 of 0 LGTMs obtained

[yuzefovich]

Indeed, I think you're right, my initial explanation was too wide, updated.

Reviewable status: complete! 0 of 0 LGTMs obtained

[RaduBerinde]

Reviewable status: complete! 1 of 0 LGTMs obtained

[yuzefovich]

TFTR!

bors r+

[craig]

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[craig]

Build succeeded:

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