Re: Idea: Comments on system catalogs?

Jim C. Nasby wrote:
-- Start of PGP signed section.
> 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.

Added to TODO:

* Add comments on system tables/columns using the information in
catalogs.sgml

Ideally the information would be pulled from the SGML file
automatically.

--
Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> http://momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://postgres.enterprisedb.com

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