Re: bloated heapam.h

Alvaro Herrera <alvherre(at)commandprompt(dot)com> writes:
> Apparently the reason for pg_dump.c to need htup.h is getAttrName which
> needs system columns' attribute numbers. Of course, the first thing
> that comes to mind is that we should fix pg_dump to not require that
> header in the first place. Perhaps we can get the names by querying the
> server, at the same time we get the user column names. (Apparently this
> is only used to dump unique indexes on system columns.)

> The easiest actual solution, however, seems to be to move those
> attribute numbers to a separate header, say access/sysattrs.h.

Yeah, probably. There is certainly no reason for a frontend program
to be dealing in Datum; but it isn't unreasonable for it to know
the system column numbers, since it can see those in the catalogs.

I'm sure we have work in front of us to get these things separated
out a bit better.

regards, tom lane