Thread: rename of a view
Hi all, I got the question: how can I rename a view? At the first moment, I have had no idea ... and I asked the German guys at IRC. They have had no idea too. Than I just tried: alter table pgview rename to bettername; that works, but there is no hint at the documentation, that you can rename a view via alter table. Is it possible to add a hint for this to the documentation? Regards, Susanne -- Susanne Ebrecht, 52066 Aachen, Germany
Susanne Ebrecht <miracee@miracee.de> writes:
> that works, but there is no hint at the documentation, that you can
> rename a view via alter table.
It is mentioned someplace (don't remember where). Where would you have
expected to find it?
regards, tom lane
On Thu, 2007-28-06 at 13:31 +0200, Susanne Ebrecht wrote: > Than I just tried: alter table pgview rename to bettername; > > that works, but there is no hint at the documentation, that you can > rename a view via alter table. From the ALTER TABLE reference page: "The RENAME forms change the name of a table (or an index, sequence, or view) or the name of an individual column in a table." Of course, it could be made more obvious... -Neil
On Thu, Jun 28, 2007 at 10:16:51AM -0400, Tom Lane wrote: > Susanne Ebrecht <miracee@miracee.de> writes: > > that works, but there is no hint at the documentation, that you > > can rename a view via alter table. > > It is mentioned someplace (don't remember where). Where would you > have expected to find it? I'd expect to find it in an ALTER VIEW document. Cheers, D -- David Fetter <david@fetter.org> http://fetter.org/ phone: +1 415 235 3778 AIM: dfetter666 Skype: davidfetter Remember to vote! Consider donating to PostgreSQL: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
Neil Conway wrote: > On Thu, 2007-28-06 at 13:31 +0200, Susanne Ebrecht wrote: > >> Than I just tried: alter table pgview rename to bettername; >> >> that works, but there is no hint at the documentation, that you can >> rename a view via alter table. >> > > >From the ALTER TABLE reference page: "The RENAME forms change the name > of a table (or an index, sequence, or view) or the name of an individual > column in a table." > > Of course, it could be made more obvious... > I looked at \h ALTER TABLE my system is in German, and there is no hint, that this is for views too. Using 8.2.4. Susanne -- Susanne Ebrecht, 52066 Aachen, Germany
On Fri, Jun 29, 2007 at 11:32:19AM -0700, David Fetter wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 28, 2007 at 10:16:51AM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> > Susanne Ebrecht <miracee@miracee.de> writes:
> > > that works, but there is no hint at the documentation, that you
> > > can rename a view via alter table.
> >
> > It is mentioned someplace (don't remember where). Where would you
> > have expected to find it?
>
> I'd expect to find it in an ALTER VIEW document.
>
> Cheers,
> D
The attached patch and file implement and document
ALTER [VIEW | SEQUENCE] RENAME TO
The file goes in doc/src/sgml/ref and the patch should just apply to
CVS HEAD.
Thanks to Neil Conway for all the help putting this together :)
Cheers,
D
--
David Fetter <david@fetter.org> http://fetter.org/
phone: +1 415 235 3778 AIM: dfetter666
Skype: davidfetter
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Attachment
David Fetter wrote: pgsql-patches will be more appropriate for a patch. Could you post there so your patch won't be forget? > The attached patch and file implement and document > > ALTER [VIEW | SEQUENCE] RENAME TO > I didn't test your patch, but I think we could disallow ALTER TABLE to rename sequence and view because we have specific new commands for it or at least put a NOTICE saying such a thing. -- Euler Taveira de Oliveira http://www.timbira.com/
Euler Taveira de Oliveira <euler@timbira.com> writes:
> I didn't test your patch, but I think we could disallow ALTER TABLE to
> rename sequence and view
There is exactly 0 chance of that happening, because it's always worked
historically.
Personally I don't see a lot of value in this patch at all, but maybe
it is small enough to be justifiable. I am not sure it is complete
however, in the sense of touching everyplace that should be touched,
especially documentation-wise? I mean, its only excuse to live is
that "I expected to find this functionality under $foo", and so I'm
wondering how many values of $foo there are.
regards, tom lane
On Sat, 2007-30-06 at 00:26 -0400, Tom Lane wrote: > There is exactly 0 chance of that happening, because it's always worked > historically. Agreed, but I think the patch should disallow ALTER VIEW ... RENAME on a non-view, and ALTER SEQUENCE ... RENAME on a non-sequence. -Neil
Neil Conway <neilc@samurai.com> writes:
> On Sat, 2007-30-06 at 00:26 -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
>> There is exactly 0 chance of that happening, because it's always worked
>> historically.
> Agreed, but I think the patch should disallow ALTER VIEW ... RENAME on a
> non-view, and ALTER SEQUENCE ... RENAME on a non-sequence.
No objection to that; it'd square with our treatment of TYPE and DOMAIN
commands. What I'm wondering though is whether the whole patch has
a reason to live at all, as compared to documenting someplace more
prominent than now that ALTER TABLE works on views & sequences.
regards, tom lane
On Sat, Jun 30, 2007 at 01:36:22AM -0400, Tom Lane wrote: > Neil Conway <neilc@samurai.com> writes: > > On Sat, 2007-30-06 at 00:26 -0400, Tom Lane wrote: > >> There is exactly 0 chance of that happening, because it's always > >> worked historically. > > > Agreed, but I think the patch should disallow ALTER VIEW ... > > RENAME on a non-view, and ALTER SEQUENCE ... RENAME on a > > non-sequence. > > No objection to that; it'd square with our treatment of TYPE and > DOMAIN commands. What I'm wondering though is whether the whole > patch has a reason to live at all, as compared to documenting > someplace more prominent than now that ALTER TABLE works on views & > sequences. How could it be prominent short of documentation of the thing people would expect, which is ALTER [SEQUENCE | VIEW] RENAME TO ... ? I suppose we could document that they're actually done by ALTER TABLE, but that just seems like a huge POLA violation, along with assuming way too much knowledge of how sequences and views are implemented. Cheers, D -- David Fetter <david@fetter.org> http://fetter.org/ phone: +1 415 235 3778 AIM: dfetter666 Skype: davidfetter Remember to vote! Consider donating to PostgreSQL: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
On Sat, 2007-30-06 at 01:36 -0400, Tom Lane wrote: > No objection to that; it'd square with our treatment of TYPE and DOMAIN > commands. What I'm wondering though is whether the whole patch has > a reason to live at all, as compared to documenting someplace more > prominent than now that ALTER TABLE works on views & sequences. Using ALTER TABLE to rename views and sequences is quite counter- intuitive, and has been a repeated source of confusion for users. Sure, we can document that behavior more prominently, but it seems to me it would be more straightforward in the long-run to just make the system behave more intuitively in the first place. As an added bonus, it takes very little new code to implement. For the ALTER SEQUENCE case, I think it's also a little weird to have an ALTER SEQUENCE command that modifies some of the properties of a sequence, but not the sequence's name. While that argument doesn't apply to ALTER VIEW at the moment, recent history suggests that it may only be a matter of time before we need to add an ALTER VIEW command anyway... (for instance, to control the properties of materialized or updateable views). -Neil
Neil Conway <neilc@samurai.com> writes:
> For the ALTER SEQUENCE case, I think it's also a little weird to have an
> ALTER SEQUENCE command that modifies some of the properties of a
> sequence, but not the sequence's name. While that argument doesn't apply
> to ALTER VIEW at the moment, recent history suggests that it may only be
> a matter of time before we need to add an ALTER VIEW command anyway...
OK, that's a fairly convincing argument. Fire away.
(I'm still not sure you found all the relevant places in the
documentation, however.)
regards, tom lane