Re: Retail DDL

On 2025-Jul-24, Andrew Dunstan wrote:

> Obviously we already have some functions for things like views and
> triggers, but most notably we don't have one for tables, something users
> have long complained about. I have been trying to think of a reasonable
> interface for a single function, where we would pass in, say, a catalog oid
> plus an object oid, and maybe some optional extra arguments.

Reproducing a table might need multiple commands. Do you intend to
return a single string containing multiple semicolon-separated commands,
or are you thinking in a RETURNS SETOF where each row contains a single
command?

What about schema-qualification needed for elements in the commands? We
have the option to schema-qualify everything, _or_ to depend on whether
the schemas are in search_path, _or_ to schema-qualify nothing (which
gives the user the chance to recreate in any schema by changing
search_path).

> That seems a bit fragile, though. The alternative is that we have a
> separate function for each object type, e.g. pg_get_{objecttype}_ddl.
> I'm kinda leaning that way, but I'd like some sort of consensus before
> any work gets done.

It looks like the discussion is leaning this way too. I think it's
a reasonable choice.

--
Álvaro Herrera Breisgau, Deutschland — https://www.EnterpriseDB.com/