Description

CREATE VIEW defines a view of a query. The view is not physically materialized. Instead, the query is run every time the view is referenced in a query.

CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW is similar, but if a view of the same name already exists, it is replaced. The new query must generate the same columns that were generated by the existing view query (that is, the same column names in the same order and with the same data types), but it may add additional columns to the end of the list. The calculations giving rise to the output columns may be completely different.

If a schema name is given (for example, CREATE VIEW myschema.myview ...) then the view is created in the specified schema. Otherwise it is created in the current schema. Temporary views exist in a special schema, so a schema name cannot be given when creating a temporary view. The name of the view must be distinct from the name of any other relation (table, sequence, index, view, materialized view, or foreign table) in the same schema.

Parameters

Notes

Use the DROP VIEW statement to drop views.

Be careful that the names and types of the view's columns will be assigned the way you want. For example:

CREATE VIEW vista AS SELECT 'Hello World';

is bad form because the column name defaults to ?column?; also, the column data type defaults to text, which might not be what you wanted. Better style for a string literal in a view's result is something like:

CREATE VIEW vista AS SELECT text 'Hello World' AS hello;

By default, access to the underlying base relations referenced in the view is determined by the permissions of the view owner. In some cases, this can be used to provide secure but restricted access to the underlying tables. However, not all views are secure against tampering; see Section 40.5 for details.

If the view has the security_invoker property set to true, access to the underlying base relations is determined by the permissions of the user executing the query, rather than the view owner. Thus, the user of a security invoker view must have the relevant permissions on the view and its underlying base relations.

If any of the underlying base relations is a security invoker view, it will be treated as if it had been accessed directly from the original query. Thus, a security invoker view will always check its underlying base relations using the permissions of the current user, even if it is accessed from a view without the security_invoker property.

If any of the underlying base relations has row-level security enabled, then by default, the row-level security policies of the view owner are applied, and access to any additional relations referred to by those policies is determined by the permissions of the view owner. However, if the view has security_invoker set to true, then the policies and permissions of the invoking user are used instead, as if the base relations had been referenced directly from the query using the view.

Functions called in the view are treated the same as if they had been called directly from the query using the view. Therefore, the user of a view must have permissions to call all functions used by the view. Functions in the view are executed with the privileges of the user executing the query or the function owner, depending on whether the functions are defined as SECURITY INVOKER or SECURITY DEFINER. Thus, for example, calling CURRENT_USER directly in a view will always return the invoking user, not the view owner. This is not affected by the view's security_invoker setting, and so a view with security_invoker set to false is not equivalent to a SECURITY DEFINER function and those concepts should not be confused.

The user creating or replacing a view must have USAGE privileges on any schemas referred to in the view query, in order to look up the referenced objects in those schemas. Note, however, that this lookup only happens when the view is created or replaced. Therefore, the user of the view only requires the USAGE privilege on the schema containing the view, not on the schemas referred to in the view query, even for a security invoker view.

When CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW is used on an existing view, only the view's defining SELECT rule, plus any WITH ( ... ) parameters and its CHECK OPTION are changed. Other view properties, including ownership, permissions, and non-SELECT rules, remain unchanged. You must own the view to replace it (this includes being a member of the owning role).

Examples

Create a view consisting of all comedy films:

CREATE VIEW comedies AS
    SELECT *
    FROM films
    WHERE kind = 'Comedy';

This will create a view containing the columns that are in the film table at the time of view creation. Though * was used to create the view, columns added later to the table will not be part of the view.

Create a view with LOCAL CHECK OPTION:

CREATE VIEW universal_comedies AS
    SELECT *
    FROM comedies
    WHERE classification = 'U'
    WITH LOCAL CHECK OPTION;

This will create a view based on the comedies view, showing only films with kind = 'Comedy' and classification = 'U'. Any attempt to INSERT or UPDATE a row in the view will be rejected if the new row doesn't have classification = 'U', but the film kind will not be checked.

Create a view with CASCADED CHECK OPTION:

CREATE VIEW pg_comedies AS
    SELECT *
    FROM comedies
    WHERE classification = 'PG'
    WITH CASCADED CHECK OPTION;

This will create a view that checks both the kind and classification of new rows.

Create a view with a mix of updatable and non-updatable columns:

CREATE VIEW comedies AS
    SELECT f.*,
           country_code_to_name(f.country_code) AS country,
           (SELECT avg(r.rating)
            FROM user_ratings r
            WHERE r.film_id = f.id) AS avg_rating
    FROM films f
    WHERE f.kind = 'Comedy';

This view will support INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE. All the columns from the films table will be updatable, whereas the computed columns country and avg_rating will be read-only.

Create a recursive view consisting of the numbers from 1 to 100:

CREATE RECURSIVE VIEW public.nums_1_100 (n) AS
    VALUES (1)
UNION ALL
    SELECT n+1 FROM nums_1_100 WHERE n < 100;

Notice that although the recursive view's name is schema-qualified in this CREATE, its internal self-reference is not schema-qualified. This is because the implicitly-created CTE's name cannot be schema-qualified.

Compatibility

CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW is a Postgres Pro language extension. So is the concept of a temporary view. The WITH ( ... ) clause is an extension as well, as are security barrier views and security invoker views.

See Also