Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-05 Thread Andreas Pflug
Justin Clift wrote: Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote: Anyone who's writing queries that are examing the schema of the database is by definition not a newbie... By newbie here, I mean someone who's a PG "newbie" but has a reasonable understanding of databases (i.e. Oracle, etc) would generally fin

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-04 Thread Tom Lane
Christopher Kings-Lynne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> Do you get where I'm coming from with this? > Yes, but I disagree. Same here. The portable information already is in information_schema, and I don't really see that it's better to find unportable information in information_schema views than

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-04 Thread Christopher Kings-Lynne
One other benefit of having more stuff in information_schema.* is that the stuff there is "easier" to look at and figure out what it is. With the view definitions that are provided to things like psql and pgAdmin when people look at an information_schema view, it provides them a way of figurin

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-04 Thread Justin Clift
Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote: There's a whole lot of difference between the skill level needed to query the information_schema and find out things like table and column names, vs looking into pg_namespace, pg_class and pg_attribute plus understanding the specific info there to work out table an

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-04 Thread Christopher Kings-Lynne
There's a whole lot of difference between the skill level needed to query the information_schema and find out things like table and column names, vs looking into pg_namespace, pg_class and pg_attribute plus understanding the specific info there to work out table and column names. I reckon that

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-04 Thread Justin Clift
Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote: Anyone who's writing queries that are examing the schema of the database is by definition not a newbie... By newbie here, I mean someone who's a PG "newbie" but has a reasonable understanding of databases (i.e. Oracle, etc) would generally find the "information_sc

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-04 Thread Christopher Kings-Lynne
My take on this is that it's a LOT easier for people who don't know the internals of the PG catalogs to be able to query the information schema, as in the information schema things are generally explicitly named. Much easier for non-experts, which most people don't want to have to invest the ti

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-04 Thread Justin Clift
Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote: Well, if we add them (and they would be very useful I reckon) should we ensure there's an obvious PG naming thing happening? Why are they useful If you want PG specific stuff then use the PG specific catalogs!!! My take on this is that it's a LOT easier for peop

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-03 Thread Bruno Wolff III
On Sat, Jul 03, 2004 at 18:02:01 +0800, Christopher Kings-Lynne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >>Why are they useful If you want PG specific stuff then use the PG > >>specific catalogs!!! > > > >The information schema could be used to provide a more stable interface. > >The pg catalog changes

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-03 Thread Christopher Kings-Lynne
I didn't write that (or at least, I didn't mean to write that :-). The SQL standard tells that they will not use trailing underscores, therefore *my* conclusion is that it is future proof (from a standards perspective) if all PostgreSQL extensions use a trailing underscore. Which also gives an indi

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-03 Thread Christopher Kings-Lynne
Why are they useful If you want PG specific stuff then use the PG specific catalogs!!! The information schema could be used to provide a more stable interface. The pg catalog changes from release to release and it would be nice to be able to write code which is more future proof. Really? It wi

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-02 Thread Tom Lane
Jochem van Dieten <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > I didn't write that (or at least, I didn't mean to write that :-). The > SQL standard tells that they will not use trailing underscores, Um ... actually that's not what it says: > "NOTE 77 - It is the intention that no specified in ISO/IEC > 9075 o

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-02 Thread Hannu Krosing
On R, 2004-07-02 at 20:04, Tom Lane wrote: > Bruno Wolff III <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > Christopher Kings-Lynne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> Why are they useful If you want PG specific stuff then use the PG > >> specific catalogs!!! > > > The information schema could be used to prov

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-02 Thread Jochem van Dieten
On Fri, 02 Jul 2004 14:57:18 +0300, Hannu Krosing <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > IIRC we were recently told (in this thread) that the SQL standard tells > to end local customisations with underscore, so it would be > 'column_comment_' I didn't write that (or at least, I didn't mean to write that

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-02 Thread Tom Lane
Bruno Wolff III <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Christopher Kings-Lynne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Why are they useful If you want PG specific stuff then use the PG >> specific catalogs!!! > The information schema could be used to provide a more stable interface. > The pg catalog changes f

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-02 Thread Bruno Wolff III
On Fri, Jul 02, 2004 at 22:30:05 +0800, Christopher Kings-Lynne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >>Well, if we add them (and they would be very useful I reckon) should we > >>ensure there's an obvious PG naming thing happening? > > Why are they useful If you want PG specific stuff then use the

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-02 Thread Christopher Kings-Lynne
Well, if we add them (and they would be very useful I reckon) should we ensure there's an obvious PG naming thing happening? Why are they useful If you want PG specific stuff then use the PG specific catalogs!!! Chris ---(end of broadcast)--- T

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-02 Thread Robert Treat
On Fri, 2004-07-02 at 07:57, Hannu Krosing wrote: > On R, 2004-07-02 at 05:07, Justin Clift wrote: > > Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote: > > >> There is a huge difference between adhering to a standard and limiting > > >> yourself to a standard. The real question is whether PostgreSQL's > > >> goal i

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-02 Thread Hannu Krosing
On R, 2004-07-02 at 05:07, Justin Clift wrote: > Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote: > >> There is a huge difference between adhering to a standard and limiting > >> yourself to a standard. The real question is whether PostgreSQL's > >> goal is to support SQL standards, or whether PostgreSQL's goal is

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-01 Thread Justin Clift
Greg Sabino Mullane wrote: If there is that much clamor for this, why not make a new schema, such as "pginformation_schema" People could then tweak the views to their heart's content, while keeping 100% compliance. Doesn't sound very neat. If we add a pginformation_schema, then it'd probably conta

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-01 Thread Greg Sabino Mullane
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 > I agree. The stuff is certainly accessible in PG-specific tables, so > the argument that we are missing functionality doesn't hold any water > IMHO. The question is whether we have to keep information_schema > pristine. I think that you and St

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-01 Thread Justin Clift
Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote: There is a huge difference between adhering to a standard and limiting yourself to a standard. The real question is whether PostgreSQL's goal is to support SQL standards, or whether PostgreSQL's goal is to give PostgreSQL users a useful set of tools. There are liter

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-01 Thread Christopher Kings-Lynne
There is a huge difference between adhering to a standard and limiting yourself to a standard. The real question is whether PostgreSQL's goal is to support SQL standards, or whether PostgreSQL's goal is to give PostgreSQL users a useful set of tools. There are literally _hundreds_ of fields we cou

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-01 Thread Peter Eisentraut
Jochem van Dieten wrote: > PS I think I spotted an inconsistency in the standard. It says "to > tables that are defined in this Clause", while the Clause only > defines views, not tables. Tables are "base tables", views are "derived tables", so this is OK. ---(end of broa

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-01 Thread Jochem van Dieten
On Thu, 1 Jul 2004 12:23:10 -0500, Bruno Wolff III <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Is there any provision in the information schema part of the standard for > vendor specific extensions? Yes, there is: "An SQL-implementation may define objects that are associated with INFORMATION_SCHEMA

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-01 Thread Dennis Bjorklund
On Thu, 1 Jul 2004 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > We're advertising to do pure ANSI, so we'd mislead people if we > > supplied non-standard columns. > > Yes, but if folks wanted to stick to the standard PostgreSQL would > still work. The only difference is that people who aren't concerned > about

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-01 Thread Stephan Szabo
On Thu, 1 Jul 2004 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Andreas Pflug <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > Justin Clift wrote: > > > >> Tom Lane wrote: > >> > >>> > >>> This question has been touched on before, but I guess it's time to > >>> face it fair and square: is it reasonable for an SQL > >>> implementa

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-01 Thread Bruno Wolff III
On Thu, Jul 01, 2004 at 10:38:02 -0600, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Andreas Pflug <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > Yes, but if folks wanted to stick to the standard PostgreSQL would > still work. The only difference is that people who aren't concerned > about being more tied to PostgreSQL would g

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-01 Thread Tom Lane
Dennis Bjorklund <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Thu, 1 Jul 2004 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> There is a huge difference between adhering to a standard and limiting >> yourself to a standard. > Having pg specific system tables (as we do) is something we need of > course, for things that are not in

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-01 Thread jearl
Andreas Pflug <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Justin Clift wrote: > >> Tom Lane wrote: >> >>> >>> This question has been touched on before, but I guess it's time to >>> face it fair and square: is it reasonable for an SQL >>> implementation to add implementation-specific columns to an >>> informatio

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-01 Thread Dave Page
> -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tom Lane > Sent: 01 July 2004 05:33 > To: Justin Clift > Cc: PostgreSQL Hackers Mailing List > Subject: Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to > information_schema.co

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-01 Thread Andreas Pflug
Justin Clift wrote: Tom Lane wrote: This question has been touched on before, but I guess it's time to face it fair and square: is it reasonable for an SQL implementation to add implementation-specific columns to an information_schema view? One could certainly argue that the entire point of inform

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-01 Thread Christopher Kings-Lynne
This question has been touched on before, but I guess it's time to face it fair and square: is it reasonable for an SQL implementation to add implementation-specific columns to an information_schema view? One could certainly argue that the entire point of information_schema is to be *standard*, no

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-07-01 Thread Tom Lane
Justin Clift <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Not sure how worthwhile others will find this small patch (to CVS HEAD), > but we found it useful. It adds the column comments to the > information_schema.columns view. This question has been touched on before, but I guess it's time to face it fair and

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-06-30 Thread Justin Clift
Tom Lane wrote: Justin Clift <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: Not sure how worthwhile others will find this small patch (to CVS HEAD), but we found it useful. It adds the column comments to the information_schema.columns view. This question has been touched on before, but I guess it's time to face i

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-06-30 Thread Christopher Kings-Lynne
Not sure how worthwhile others will find this small patch (to CVS HEAD), but we found it useful. It adds the column comments to the information_schema.columns view. Is column comment in the standard? If not, we cannot of course add it... Chris ---(end of broadcast)--

Re: [HACKERS] Adding column comment to information_schema.columns

2004-06-30 Thread Dennis Bjorklund
On Thu, 1 Jul 2004, Justin Clift wrote: > but we found it useful. It adds the column comments to the > information_schema.columns view. Doesn't the specification say exactly what columns should exist? Lots of things in the old system tables are not visible in the information_schema because of