Thread: How to figure out when was a table created

Folks,

I have a list of tables for which I want to get the date they were
created...and if possible the date last updateded.

I suspect there is a pg_??? table that can answer this question but I don't
know what it is and I cannot find it mentioned in any docs.

Any suggestions...tia
-D

p.s. Love this forum!

Hi folks,

I posted this question a few days ago and got no response so I guess it
cannot be done (surprising!)
So that leaves me with my business problem.

We create a table for each days activity.
After N days (typically 7 days) we can drop the table.
The table name is not known so cannot force business to make tablename
something like mydata_MMDDYY

I'd like to be able to do something like:SELECT tablenameFROM   pg_???WHERE  to_char( ???, 'dd/mm/yy' ) = to_char(
now()- interval '7 days',
 
'dd/mm/yy' )

Any suggestions?

--- Prior msg was:

Folks,

I have a list of tables for which I want to get the date they were
created...and if possible the date last updateded.

I suspect there is a pg_??? table that can answer this question but I don't
know what it is and I cannot find it mentioned in any docs.

Any suggestions...tia
-D

p.s. Love this forum!

Well, in certain filesystems you can have the birth time
(like ufs2) stored in the inode struct.

So you find the file name in your $PGDATA/base directory
using the oid of your table (in pg_class),
and then you open that file with stat (2) or utimes (2) (or
from perl) to read creation data.

All that apply for FreeBSD, see if creation time is supported
in ext2/3.

On Thu, 2 Oct 2003, David B wrote:

> Hi folks,
> 
> I posted this question a few days ago and got no response so I guess it
> cannot be done (surprising!)
> So that leaves me with my business problem.
> 
> We create a table for each days activity.
> After N days (typically 7 days) we can drop the table.
> The table name is not known so cannot force business to make tablename
> something like mydata_MMDDYY
> 
> I'd like to be able to do something like:
>     SELECT tablename
>     FROM   pg_???
>     WHERE  to_char( ???, 'dd/mm/yy' ) = to_char( now() - interval '7 days',
> 'dd/mm/yy' )
> 
> Any suggestions?
> 
> --- Prior msg was:
> 
> Folks,
> 
> I have a list of tables for which I want to get the date they were
> created...and if possible the date last updateded.
> 
> I suspect there is a pg_??? table that can answer this question but I don't
> know what it is and I cannot find it mentioned in any docs.
> 
> Any suggestions...tia
> -D
> 
> p.s. Love this forum!
> 
> 
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
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> 

On Thu, Oct 02, 2003 at 16:01:16 -0700, David B <postgresql@thegatelys.com> wrote:
> Hi folks,
> 
> I posted this question a few days ago and got no response so I guess it
> cannot be done (surprising!)
> So that leaves me with my business problem.
> 
> We create a table for each days activity.
> After N days (typically 7 days) we can drop the table.
> The table name is not known so cannot force business to make tablename
> something like mydata_MMDDYY
> 
> I'd like to be able to do something like:
>     SELECT tablename
>     FROM   pg_???
>     WHERE  to_char( ???, 'dd/mm/yy' ) = to_char( now() - interval '7 days',
> 'dd/mm/yy' )
> 
> Any suggestions?

You could consider changing the way you do things. You might be able to
accomplish your goal by keeping the data in one table and keeping
partial indexes on the table corresponding to the last seven days.

Can you add two columns to the table creation definition, one with a
default current timestamp, the second to be updated with current time in
an on update trigger. Then perhaps you could do something like

SELECT min(new_insert_timestamp_column), max(new_update_timestamp_column) FROM your_table;

to get the table-wide date of first entry and last update.

~Berend Tober

>
> Well, in certain filesystems you can have the birth time
> (like ufs2) stored in the inode struct.
>
> So you find the file name in your $PGDATA/base directory
> using the oid of your table (in pg_class),
> and then you open that file with stat (2) or utimes (2) (or
> from perl) to read creation data.
>
> All that apply for FreeBSD, see if creation time is supported
> in ext2/3.
>
> On Thu, 2 Oct 2003, David B wrote:
>
>> Hi folks,
>>
>> I posted this question a few days ago and got no response so I guess
>> it cannot be done (surprising!)
>> So that leaves me with my business problem.
>>
>> We create a table for each days activity.
>> After N days (typically 7 days) we can drop the table.
>> The table name is not known so cannot force business to make
>> tablename something like mydata_MMDDYY
>>
>> I'd like to be able to do something like:
>>     SELECT tablename
>>     FROM   pg_???
>>     WHERE  to_char( ???, 'dd/mm/yy' ) = to_char( now() - interval '7
>> days',
>> 'dd/mm/yy' )
>>
>> Any suggestions?
>>
>> --- Prior msg was:
>>
>> Folks,
>>
>> I have a list of tables for which I want to get the date they were
>> created...and if possible the date last updateded.
>>
>> I suspect there is a pg_??? table that can answer this question but I
>> don't know what it is and I cannot find it mentioned in any docs.
>>
>> Any suggestions...tia