Ioannis Theoharis <theohari(at)ics(dot)forth(dot)gr> writes:
> My question is whether the way, in wich postgresql do this task, is a
> transitive closure on table 'pg_inherits' or there is a better approach
> implemented (like numbering scheme techniques etc.) ?

It's a transitive closure, and not a very bright one at that; see
find_all_inheritors(), find_inheritance_children(), and particularly
the comments to the latter.  However, we've not heard reports indicating
that this is a serious bottleneck in any real-world situation, so
no one has spent time to improve it.  (I'd expect the per-table planning
costs to vastly outweigh the cost of finding those tables, anyway.)

			regards, tom lane

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• Transitive Closure and 'pg_inherits' at 2005-04-03 14:45:56 from Ioannis Theoharis

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