Re: ALTER TABLE modifications

From: Rod Taylor <pg(at)rbt(dot)ca>
To: pg(at)fastcrypt(dot)com
Cc: Hannu Krosing <hannu(at)tm(dot)ee>, Peter Eisentraut <peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net>, PostgreSQL Patches <pgsql-patches(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Re: ALTER TABLE modifications
Date: 2003-11-14 14:32:57
Message-ID: 1068820376.35839.15.camel@jester
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On Fri, 2003-11-14 at 08:59, Dave Cramer wrote:
> Rod,
>
> I tried the current patch on a RC2 release, and I noticed one
> undesirable side affect.
>
> Modifying a column moves it to the end. In high availability situations
> this would not be desirable, I would imagine it would break lots of
> code.

Yes, I've done that to myself a few times.

The method is rename old column, add new column, move data across, move
or reform dependencies, drop old column.

Adding the new column puts it to the end. In order to avoid the
repositioning we would need some kind of a position abstraction from the
physical storage to what the user sees. It's on the TODO list, but not a
part of this patch.

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