Re: [HACKERS] Happy column dropping

Then <pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us> spoke up and said:
> Ingres has table names as numbered files. It is a pain to figure out
> which files match which tables. If you need to restore a table from
> tape, the pg_class entry is gone and you have no way to figure out the
> right table. When analyzing disk space, figuring who is using the space
> is a pain.
>
> Every Ingre admin I ever talked to agreed file numbers are a pain.

I, too, found the Ingres naming scheme to be a pain, especially since
the numbers change when you drop/recreate a table (but not for
truncation). In my case, I wrote a fairly trivial script that runs as
part of the backup job that lists all tables and filenames. This give
me an accurate map of whats out there. It has the added advantage
that I can use this list to remove tables/database owned by users who
no longer exist (although, in truth, I hesitate to do that
automatically).

On the other hand, I *hate* the Oracle tablespace scheme. At least
with Ingres, when I update a table, I *don't* have to backup all of
the other tables in that database (barring Oracle's hot-backup mode,
of course).

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