Re: Reordering the fields in a table

From: Laurenz Albe <laurenz(dot)albe(at)cybertec(dot)at>
To: "Campbell, Lance" <lance(at)illinois(dot)edu>, "pgsql-admin(at)lists(dot)postgresql(dot)org" <pgsql-admin(at)lists(dot)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Re: Reordering the fields in a table
Date: 2021-04-16 19:54:24
Message-ID: d3bd1525612fe9784b66d313755947a9284e4ef9.camel@cybertec.at
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On Fri, 2021-04-16 at 16:15 +0000, Campbell, Lance wrote:
> I would love to see an enhancement to PostgreSQL where administrators had some way to reorder the fields in their tables.
>
> Why is this a big deal?
> The one issue that causes me the most grief is the readability of tables. When you manage 17 services
> where you are continually tweaking the system you find the tables are very unreadable.
> New fields are continually added to the bottom of tables. They are just not readable.

There is a misconception here.
Database tables are not designed for human consumption.
If you want to present your table data in a readable format, you need a front end application.
Arranging table columns is the job of such a tool.

If you want to do it in the database, use a view.
Simple views that just reorder the columns are updatable, so you could just
use those instead of the underlying tables in your statements.

Yours,
Laurenz Albe
--
Cybertec | https://www.cybertec-postgresql.com

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