How to atomically replace table data in PostgreSQL

Question

I want to replace the entire contents of a table, without affecting any incoming SELECT statements during the process.

The use case is to have a table which stores mailbox information that is regularly extracted, and needs to be stored in a PostgreSQL table. There are many clients using an application that is constantly querying that same table.

Normally, I would do something like (pseudocode incoming)...

BEGIN TRANSACTION
TRUNCATE TABLE
INSERT INTO
COMMIT

But unfortunately the table cannot be read during this process; due to the time it takes INSERT INTO to complete. The table is locked.

In MySQL, I would have used their atomic RENAME TABLE command to avoid these issues...

CREATE TABLE table_new LIKE table; 
INSERT INTO table_new;
RENAME TABLE table TO table_old, table_new TO table; *atomic operation*
DROP TABLE table_old;

How could I achieve this in PostgreSQL?

For the purposes of this question, you can assume I am not using foreign keys.

Answer 1

Right, the TRUNCATE TABLE command you are performing "... acquires an ACCESS EXCLUSIVE lock on each table it operates on", so in the first SQL block you posted, any other clients attempting to access the table after that time will be blocked until your INSERT finishes and you COMMIT.

You can use the same workaround as in your MySQL-specific code; Postgres supports roughly the same syntax and will have similar locking behavior. To wit:

BEGIN;
-- You probably want to make sure that no one else is
-- INSERT / UPDATE / DELETE'ing from the original table, otherwise
-- those changes may be lost during this switchover process. One way
-- to do that would be via:
-- LOCK TABLE "table" IN SHARE ROW EXCLUSIVE mode;
CREATE TABLE "table_new" (LIKE "table");
INSERT INTO "table_new" ...;

-- The ALTER TABLE ... RENAME TO command takes an Access Exclusive lock on "table",
-- but these final few statements should be fast.
ALTER TABLE "table" RENAME TO "table_old";
ALTER TABLE "table_new" RENAME TO "table";
DROP TABLE "table_old";

COMMIT;

Extra bonus: Postgres actually supports transactional DDL, unlike MySQL, so in case you need to ROLLBACK the above transaction, you may safely do so.