On top of that
default_table_access_method is user-settable.
FWIW this proposal acknowledges that and basically leverages it to the hilt, turning it into something like search_path. I strongly dislike the idea of any workflow that depends on a GUC in this manner. The fact that it is user-settable is, IMO, a flaw, not a feature, at least as far as production settings are concerned.
It is a novel API for PostgreSQL to rely upon setting a GUC then attaching "unless" configurations to individual objects to ignore it. And what would be chosen (ultimately fallback is heap?), or whether it would simply error, is presently, as you say, undefined.
In production this general behavior becomes useful only under the condition that among the various named access methods some of them don't even exist on the server in question, but that a fallback option would be acceptable in that case. But that suggests extending "USING" to accept multiple names, not inventing a "NOT USING".
That all said, I can understand that testing presents its own special needs. But testing is probably where GUCs shine. So why not implement this capability as a GUC that is set just before the table is created instead of extending the grammar for it? Add it to "developer options" and call it a day. Dump/Restore no longer has to care about it, and its value once the table exists is basically zero anyway.
David J.
