Re: How to get the OID of a view

stan <stanb(at)panix(dot)com> writes:
> I am trying to write a query to return the names, and data types of all the
> columns in a view. It has been pointed out to me that the best approach
> would be using pg_catalog. OK, so I found pg_view, which I can get the names
> of a the views from and pg_attribute which can give me the column names,
> but it looks like i need to join this on OID, and pg_table does not have
> that data.

Yeah, pg_tables is just a user-friendly view, it's not really that
useful for programmatic work. I'd look directly at pg_class and
pg_attribute for this problem.

A good way to learn what to do is to see what psql does for its
various \d commands --- if you start it with the -E option you'll
see the underlying SQL it issues. It'll likely be more complicated
than you want, but you can strip away what's not useful for you.

regards, tom lane