Re: [HACKERS] Well, then you keep your darn columns

At 02:26 PM 1/24/00 -0600, Ed Loehr wrote:
>Don Baccus wrote:
>>
>> >How would you handle multi-column indices that included the column
>> >being dropped? E.g.,
>> >
>> > create unique index foobar on mytable(foo,bar);
>> >
>> >where the 'bar' column is then dropped...
>>
>> ... Oracle drops all indices which reference the column.

>Seems like a new 'gotcha'... either way, informative warnings/notices
>would be nice.

I'm not saying that Oracle's "right", I just offer it as one datapoint.
I have access to an Oracle installation, so it's easy enough for me to
try things out.

If dropping the index were decided upon, a notice would be nice, yes.
Or, as Tom suggested, making the user drop relevant indices by hand
first as a safeguard.

>Along these same lines, how would pre-existing functions that
>referenced the just-dropped column be handled? I'm thinking of
>PL/pgSQL...

I presume they'd fail just like any client software accessing those
columns via libpq queries, query files fed to psql, etc. Dropping
a column is something you don't want to do blithely in an existing,
complex application, that's for sure!

- Don Baccus, Portland OR <dhogaza(at)pacifier(dot)com>
Nature photos, on-line guides, Pacific Northwest
Rare Bird Alert Service and other goodies at
http://donb.photo.net.