Hi,

i was following a thread some time ago where adding a function pg_get_tabledef was one of the TODOs for 8.2, but it somehow didn't make it to the release perhaps because the functionality was not clearly defined? not sure.

Anyway  i happen to come up with a function for pg_get_tabledef which works something like following

postgres=# select pg_get_tabledef(16388) ;
        pg_get_tabledef        
--------------------------------
 CREATE TABLE  public.dept
 (
  deptno numeric(2,0) NOT NULL,
  dname  character varying(14),
  loc    character varying(13)
 )
 WITHOUT OIDS;
(1 row)



i wanted to submit a patch for this, IFF the community wants this function. The rationale is obviously to help Application developers writing applications like pgAdmin. Currently this part of SQL needs to be constructed manually for postgres by the tools.

it is arguable that a table defintion will have constraints , triggers etc as well, and they can be added without much problem, but i think if a tool needs to construct an SQL for all table related objects then functions are already available for them like pg_get_constraintdef, pg_get_ruledef, pg_get_indexdef, pg_get_triggerdef etc

i understand that you guys don't like someone to develop a patch in isolation and just come up with it one day, but it really came out as a by-product of some other work , and i thought you guys might be interested in it.

if it is desired,  i will submit  a patch for it, within a day or so.

Regards,
Usama Munir
EnterpriseDB (www.enterprisedb.com)