Re: v18 virtual columns

On Thu, Feb 20, 2025 at 3:31 PM Ron Johnson <ronljohnsonjr(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:

> On Thu, Feb 20, 2025 at 8:07 AM Dominique Devienne <ddevienne(at)gmail(dot)com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi. I've just read
>> https://www.dbi-services.com/blog/postgresql-18-virtual-generated-columns/
>>
>> and I'm wondering whether there will be a way to ALTER existing STORED
>> generated columns, to be virtual? W/o rewriting the whole table that is.
>>
>
> What about dropping the existing stored column then adding the new virtual
> column?
>
> You won't get any disk space saving for existing records, but it's not
> going to rewrite the table.
>

Didn't think of that, but yes, I think that would work.
They are GENERATED columns, so the values stored are derived data anyway,
indeed.

I also didn't know DROP COLUMN was smart enough not rewriting the column,
that's good.

Thanks, --DD