Tom Lane wrote:
I agree with the idea of having an option to get EXPLAIN's output in an entirely different, more machine-readable format. Not wedded to XML, but I fear that a pure relational structure might be too strict --- there's a lot of variability in the entries already. XML also could deal naturally with nesting, whereas we'd have to jump through hoops to represent the plan tree structure in relational form.
I agree. XML seems like a fairly natural fit for this. Just as people should not try to shoehorn everything into XML, neither should they try to shoehorn everything into a relational format either.
Now all we need is an XML schema for it ;-) cheers andrew ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 7: You can help support the PostgreSQL project by donating at http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate