Re: Another proposal for table synonyms

On Nov 30, 2010, at 10:05 PM, Josh Berkus wrote:

> Alexey,
>
>> Here is the proposal to add synonyms to PostgreSQL. Initial goal is to add synonyms
>> for relations (tables, views, sequences) and an infrastructure to allow synonyms
>> for other database objects in the future.
>
> Can you explain, for our benefit, the use case for this? Specifically,
> what can be done with synonyms which can't be done with search_path and
> VIEWs?

Well, porting applications from other database systems that support synonyms
(i.e. Oracle, DB2, SQL Server).

>
> I ask partly because I've migrated some Oracle databases to PostgreSQL,
> and did not find replacing the functionality of synonyms to be at all
> difficult. Presumably you've run into a case which was difficult?

Frankly, I don't have a specific use case, but there were some requests in
this list asking for synonyms, and adding support for them is a TODO item in
wiki.

>
> BTW, I have a specific use case for *column* synonyms which isn't
> currently covered by our existing tools.

Is this the feature the community would benefit from? We can consider adding
column synonyms if we won't hardwire synonyms to pg_class objects.

--
Alexey Klyukin http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc