Q3 PostgreSQL Domain 2 · 25–30% of exam Priority · Real Exam

Which maintenance operation reclaims space from dead tuples without an exclusive table lock?

  1. A VACUUM FULL
  2. B Autovacuum / plain VACUUM (correct answer)
  3. C REINDEX
  4. D CLUSTER

Shortcut: Plain VACUUM marks dead tuple space reusable while allowing concurrent reads and writes. VACUUM FULL rewrites the table and takes an ACCESS EXCLUSIVE lock.