It's called an organicly grown schema. I recently had exposure to such a
beast at a customer's site. I won't say whom, but they are a large
supplier of medical infrastructure software. This software has been
hacked beyond recognition. It is on Oracle and front-ends are built with
power-builder, but they have ISAM/CICS and other stuff too. Their
original ratty design has been hacked, over the years, in an
uncontrolled environment, by every schlock hacker in the SF bay area.
I've seen as many as 12 columns in an index. They didn't want it, it's
just there and they have to deal with it somehow. A re-design is over 18
months and $5M, but they have to keep current production up as well.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-pgsql-general@postgreSQL.org
> [mailto:owner-pgsql-general@postgreSQL.org]On Behalf Of Bruce Momjian
> Sent: Thursday, June 24, 1999 8:40 AM
> To: John Huttley
> Cc: pgsql-general
> Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Limitation
>
>
> [Charset iso-8859-1 unsupported, filtering to ASCII...]
> > I've been attempting to port applications from Pervasive SQL to PG.
> > Pervasive is interesting because it runs on top of btrieve.
> This allow
> > legacy apps
> > and SQL systems to co-exist. It's quirky and buggy, but
> it's better than PG
> > because it can do the following.
> >
> >
> > 1. Have more than 7 fields on a btree index
>
> We have never understood why someone would want an index with
> more than
> seven columns.
>
> --
> Bruce Momjian | http://www.op.net/~candle
> maillist@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 853-3000
> + If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue
> + Christ can be your backup. | Drexel Hill,
> Pennsylvania 19026
>
