Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
> Pavel Stehule <pavel(dot)stehule(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
>> this my proposal is very simple. It help to people who have to
>> manage large or complex database system. Important data are date of
>> creating and date of altering tables and stored procedures. These
>> data cannot be modified by user, so implementation doesn't need any
>> new statements.
>
> ISTM anyone who thinks they need this actually need a full DDL log;
> or at least, if we give them this, they will be back next week
> asking for a full log. So it'd save a lot of work to tell them to
> just log their DDL to start with.
>
> Some obvious objections to the simple approach:
> - what if I want to know *who* made the change
> - what if I need to know about the change before last
> - what if I need to know about a DROP
> - what if I need to know about operators, operator classes, schemas,
> etc etc
Well, in a situation where you've got 80-some production databases and
dozens of development databases (the number changes from day to day
as now projects create code forks and other merge back in) it is
occasionally useful to get simple information such as Pavel proposes
from the system tables. I don't think that anyone would expect the
system tables to track the complete history -- just save someone time
tracking down the complete record when such simple information would
suffice.
In terms of value -- I was wishing I had it just last week -- it would
have saved me a few minutes. It was probably two or three months
prior to that I last wished for it. Definitely not huge from my
perspective -- just an occasional convenience which some other DBMS
products provide.
-Kevin