Re: ADD/DROP INHERITS

On Wed, Jun 07, 2006 at 03:33:54PM -0400, Greg Stark wrote:
> Perhaps there should be an option when issuing the ADD INHERITS to indicate
> whether you want it to create new columns or only match existing columns. That
> would also give me a convenient excuse to skip all those NOTICEs about merging
> column definitions.

+1, but I also agree with Tom that this doesn't need to be in the first
pass.

> Actually I think in the long term for partitioned tables Postgres will have to
> implement a special syntax just like Oracle and other databases. The user
> doesn't really want to have to manually manage all the partitions as tables.
> That imposes a lot of extra work to have to define the tables with the right
> syntax, maintain the constraints properly, etc.
>
> For the user it would be better to have a single property of the partitioned
> table that specified the partition key. Then when adding a partition you would
> only have to specify the key range it covers, not write an arbitrary
> constraint from scratch. Nor would you have to create an empty table with the
> proper definition first then add it in.

I think this is on the TODO list; it's just a matter of actually doing
it. A good first step would be creating an easy means to create an
inherited table that contained everything the parent did; constraints,
indexes, etc. After that's in place, it's easier to create a new
partition (constraints and all) with a single command.

Note that there's no reason this *has* to be in the backend; someone
could do it as a pgFoundry project. Of course long-term it would be best
if it was included, but that's probably more involved, especially for a
newer coder.
--
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jnasby(at)pervasive(dot)com
Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461