> On 5 Nov 2021, at 13:03, Isaac Morland <isaac.morl...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Fri, 5 Nov 2021 at 05:21, Daniel Gustafsson <dan...@yesql.se > <mailto:dan...@yesql.se>> wrote: > > > Same reasoning as for all the other if exists we have, idempotence. Being > > able to run the command on an object that is already in the desired state > > without provoking an error. > > If the object is known to be in the desired state, there is no need to use IF > EXISTS. Personally I think IF EXISTS commands are useful when they provide a > transition to a known end state, but in this case it's an unknown end state. > > The whole point of IF EXISTS, not to mention IF NOT EXISTS and OR REPLACE, is > that the same script can run without error on a variety of existing schemas. > They aren't (primarily) for typing directly at the psql prompt. At the time > the script is written, the state of the object when the script is run is > unknown.
I know that, I'm just not convinced that it's a feature (in the case at hand). -- Daniel Gustafsson https://vmware.com/
