> Actually, what we need to do to reclaim space is to enable table
> recreation without the column, now that we have relfilenode for file
> renaming. It isn't hard to do, but no one has focused on it. I want to
> focus on it, but have not had the time, obviously, and would be very
> excited to assist someone else.
I'm happy to help - depends if it's within my skill level or not tho. Most
of the time the problem I have is finding where to make the changes, not
actually making the changes themselves. So, count me in.
> Hiroshi's fine idea of marking certain columns as unused would not have
> reclaimed the missing space, just as my idea of physical/logical column
> distinction would not reclaim the space either. Again, my
> physical/logical idea is more for fixing other problems and
> optimization, not DROP COLUMN.
Question: Is it _possible_ to reclaim the space during a VACUUM FULL? I do
not know enough about the file format to know this. What happens if the
VACUUM is stopped halfway thru reclaiming a column in a table?
Bruce: WRT modifying libpq to do the translation - won't this cause probs
for JDBC and ODBC people?
Chris
