> However, I'm not happy with the way dropped columns are renamed. I want to
> give them a name that no-one would ever want to use as a legit column name.
> I don't like this behaviour:
Yes, how about prepending a character that would usually need to be escaped.
I like Hannu's proposal with the blanks " col1 dropped@2002-07-17.10:30:00",
the underscores are too commonly used.
Maybe add two characters, one special and a backspace after the first blank.
So it would print nicely, but be very unlikely.
I would prefer a simple but highly predictable rule, where you can say "Don't
name your columns starting with " \353\010" (blank, greek d, BS) over some random
algo that stays out of the way by means of low probability.
Andreas
