uncataloged tables are a vestigial husk

From: Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com>
To: pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: uncataloged tables are a vestigial husk
Date: 2012-06-13 16:36:11
Message-ID: CA+TgmobKKc7C6zwfvEhYK5f+gWjpty7A8kLmHAe4h-9vDksB_Q@mail.gmail.com
Views: Raw Message | Whole Thread | Download mbox | Resend email
Thread:
Lists: pgsql-hackers

While working on some code today, I noticed that RELKIND_UNCATALOGED
appears to serve no useful purpose. In the few places where we check
for it at all, we treat it in exactly the same way as
RELKIND_RELATION. It seems that it's only purpose is to serve as a
placeholder inside each newly-created relcache entry until the real
relkind is filled in. But this seems pretty silly, because
RelationBuildLocalRelation(), where the relcache entry is created, is
called in only one place, heap_create(), which already knows the
relkind. So, essentially, right now, we're relying on the callers of
heap_create() to pass in a relkind and then, after heap_create()
returns, stick that same relkind into the relcache entry before
inserting the pg_class tuple. The only place where that doesn't
happen is in the bootstrap code, which instead allows
RELKIND_UNCATALOGED to stick around in the relcache entry even though
we have RELKIND_RELATION in the pg_class tuple. But we don't actually
rely on that for anything, so it seems this is just an unnecessary
complication.

The attached patch cleans it up by removing RELKIND_UNCATALOGED and
teaching RelationBuildLocalRelation() to set the relkind itself.

--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

Attachment Content-Type Size
remove-relkind-uncataloged.patch application/octet-stream 5.7 KB

Responses

Browse pgsql-hackers by date

  From Date Subject
Next Message Robert Haas 2012-06-13 16:45:34 Re: [COMMITTERS] pgsql: Mark JSON error detail messages for translation.
Previous Message Tom Lane 2012-06-13 16:27:25 Re: [COMMITTERS] pgsql: Mark JSON error detail messages for translation.