Re: temp table same name real table - Mailing list pgsql-general

Agreed, though the documentation seems a bit loose here.  The fact that the temp table hides the permanent one is a side-effect of pg_temp being placed first in the default search_path.  If it is explicitly placed last the permanent table would be found again.

Adding a reminder that search_path searching happens only during new plan creation (even if we don't generally cover caching implementation in detail, though I didn't look around for this one) seems like a good value.

I propose the following:

diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/ref/create_table.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/ref/create_table.sgml
index 087cad184c..a400334092 100644
--- a/doc/src/sgml/ref/create_table.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/ref/create_table.sgml
@@ -171,8 +171,9 @@ WITH ( MODULUS <replaceable class="parameter">numeric_literal</replaceable>, REM
       If specified, the table is created as a temporary table.
       Temporary tables are automatically dropped at the end of a
       session, or optionally at the end of the current transaction
-      (see <literal>ON COMMIT</literal> below).  Existing permanent
-      tables with the same name are not visible to the current session
+      (see <literal>ON COMMIT</literal> below).  The default
+      search_path includes the temporary schema first and so identically
+      named existing permanent tables are not chosen for new plans
       while the temporary table exists, unless they are referenced
       with schema-qualified names. Any indexes created on a temporary
       table are automatically temporary as well.

David J.