Re: Prepping to break every past release... - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Bruce Momjian
Subject Re: Prepping to break every past release...
Date
Msg-id 200903091759.n29Hxmi06944@momjian.us
Whole thread Raw
In response to Prepping to break every past release...  ("Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com>)
List pgsql-hackers
If this is the worst inconsistency you can find in our system tables
after +20 years of development, I feel pretty good.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> Something that continues to grind my teeth about our software is that we
> are horribly inconsistent with our system catalogs. Now I am fully and
> 100% aware that changing this will break things in user land but I want
> to do it anyway. In order to do that I believe we need to come up with a
> very loud, extremely verbose method of communicating to people that 8.5
> *will* break things. 
> 
> It seems to me that the best method would be to follow the
> information_schema naming conventions as information_schema is standard
> compliant (right?).
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> Examples:
> 
> postgres=# \d pg_class
>       Table "pg_catalog.pg_class"
>      Column     |   Type    | Modifiers 
> ----------------+-----------+-----------
>  relname        | name      | not null
>  relnamespace   | oid       | not null
> [...]
> 
> postgres=# \d pg_tables
>     View "pg_catalog.pg_tables"
>    Column    |  Type   | Modifiers 
> -------------+---------+-----------
>  schemaname  | name    | 
>  tablename   | name    | 
> 
> postgres=# \d pg_stat_user_tables
>           View "pg_catalog.pg_stat_user_tables"
>       Column      |           Type           | Modifiers 
> ------------------+--------------------------+-----------
>  relid            | oid                      | 
>  schemaname       | name                     | 
>  relname          | name                     | 
> 
> 
> postgres=# \d information_schema.tables
>                        View "information_schema.tables"
>             Column            |               Type                |
> Modifiers 
> ------------------------------+-----------------------------------+-----------
>  table_catalog                | information_schema.sql_identifier | 
>  table_schema                 | information_schema.sql_identifier | 
>  table_name                   | information_schema.sql_identifier | 
> 
> 
> -- 
> PostgreSQL - XMPP: jdrake@jabber.postgresql.org
>    Consulting, Development, Support, Training
>    503-667-4564 - http://www.commandprompt.com/
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> 
> 
> -- 
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--  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB
http://enterprisedb.com
 + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +


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