Re: Idea: Comments on system catalogs?

On Wed, Jul 04, 2007 at 01:03:20PM +0200, Dawid Kuroczko wrote:
> Hello.
>
> I think it could be a nice idea to put descriptions from
> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.2/static/catalogs.html
> into system catalogs itself. I.e., make a bunch of
>
> COMMENT ON COLUMN pg_class.relname
> IS 'Name of the table, index, view, etc.';
> ...
> COMMENT ON COLUMN pg_class.relkind
> IS 'r = ordinary table, i = index, S = sequence, v = view, c =
> composite type, t = TOAST table';
>
> and so on.
>
> I think it could be helpful, when you're writing your own selects
> on system catalogs.
>
> Perhaps it could be optional (as a contrib .sql file).
>
> If you like the idea, I could prepare a script which will
> convert documentation into .sql file with series of
> COMMENT ON .. IS ...;

Actually, this does exist for some things in the catalog; I suspect it
just wasn't done in the past (perhaps Postgres didn't originally have
comments). I think it would be a useful addition. But I think it'd need
to be more than just a .sql file (initdb would probably need to be
modified). Ideally, we'd be able to suck the info out of the appropriate
.sgml files.
--
Jim Nasby decibel(at)decibel(dot)org
EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com 512.569.9461 (cell)