Re: drop column

From: Martijn van Oosterhout <kleptog(at)svana(dot)org>
To: Keary Suska <hierophant(at)pcisys(dot)net>
Cc: PostgreSQL <pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Re: drop column
Date: 2001-10-19 00:00:43
Message-ID: 20011019100043.B10169@svana.org
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On Thu, Oct 18, 2001 at 12:03:35PM -0600, Keary Suska wrote:
> Unfortunately, Postgres' greatest shortcoming (IMHO) is the inability to
> change table definitions much after creation. To effect any column changes
> besides DEFAULT clauses and indexing (and a few other options), you have to
> drop and re-create the table.

Well, you can add and rename columns. What I tend to do is rename them to
unused_xx and then if I ever get around to reloading the database, I simply
exclude them.

But yeah, it would be nice. Anyone volunteering?

I think there are some discussions about this and basically it would require
allowing different rows in the same table to have different numbers of
fields. Adding to the end is easy because you can just fill in the nulls on
load.

--
Martijn van Oosterhout <kleptog(at)svana(dot)org>
http://svana.org/kleptog/
> Magnetism, electricity and motion are like a three-for-two special offer:
> if you have two of them, the third one comes free.

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