Re: ALTER RENAME and indexes

On 05 Oct 2001 at 09:46 (-0400), Tom Lane wrote:
| Brent Verner <brent(at)rcfile(dot)org> writes:
| > 'ALTER TABLE tbl RENAME col1 TO col2' does not update any indices that
| > reference the old column name.
|
| It doesn't need to; the indexes link to column numbers, not column
| names.

Forgive my incorrect description of the problem... By example...

brent=# select version();
version
---------------------------------------------------------------
PostgreSQL 7.1.3 on i686-pc-linux-gnu, compiled by GCC 2.95.4
(1 row)

brent=# create table test ( id serial, col1 varchar(64) NOT NULL);
NOTICE: CREATE TABLE will create implicit sequence 'test_id_seq' for SERIAL column 'test.id'
NOTICE: CREATE TABLE/UNIQUE will create implicit index 'test_id_key' for table 'test'
CREATE
brent=# create index idx_test_col1 on test(col1);
CREATE
brent=# \d idx_test_col1
Index "idx_test_col1"
Attribute | Type
-----------+-----------------------
col1 | character varying(64)
btree

brent=# alter table test rename col1 to col2;
ALTER
brent=# \d idx_test_col1
Index "idx_test_col1"
Attribute | Type
-----------+-----------------------
col1 | character varying(64)
btree

brent=# \d test
Table "test"
Attribute | Type | Modifier
-----------+-----------------------+-------------------------------------------------
id | integer | not null default nextval('"test_id_seq"'::text)
col2 | character varying(64) | not null
Indices: idx_test_col1,
test_id_key

I hit this problem using the jdbc driver, and originally thought
it was the jdbc code, but as the above shows, the problem seems to
be a failure to update one (or more) of the system catalogs.

Again, any pointers beyond look in src/backend/commands/rename.c
would be appreciated. My big question is how is the content of
the system tables used/affected from within PG -- I originally
thought it would be simple enough to issue some SQL to properly
update the system tables, but apparently that idea was /very/ naive.
Is there any way to list all $things that reference the altered
entity? find_all_inheritors() does not /appear/ to be getting
everything that needs to be updated.

Also, a lot of terminology within the code is making my head spin (not
a difficult task ;-)), but then I've only spent about two hours
digging around this code. Is there a 'understanding internal PostgreSQL
terminology' document that I've missed?

thanks.
Brent

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