Re: ALTER TABLE: warn when actions do not recurse to partitions

> On Mar 9, 2026, at 21:02, Jim Jones <jim(dot)jones(at)uni-muenster(dot)de> wrote:
>
> Hi Chao
>
> On 09/03/2026 07:46, Chao Li wrote:
>> I agree with you that the NOTICE should only be emitted when the action succeeds.
>
> Cool. v5 fixes this issue.
> The error is now emitted prior to any NOTICE:
>
> postgres=# ALTER TABLE m ALTER COLUMN a SET COMPRESSION pglz;
> ERROR: column data type integer does not support compression
>
>> Actually, there was another known issue in v4. Since an ALTER TABLE command may contain multiple sub-commands, the NOTICE and HINT could be repeated multiple times, and the HINT was completely duplicate.
>
> Nice. The messages are now collected in CollectPartitionNoRecurseNotice
> and emitted in EmitPartitionNoRecurseNotice, and duplicates are ignored,
> if applicable ...
>
> ALTER TABLE m
> ALTER COLUMN b SET COMPRESSION pglz,
> ALTER COLUMN b SET COMPRESSION pglz,
> DISABLE RULE r,
> ENABLE ROW LEVEL SECURITY,
> FORCE ROW LEVEL SECURITY,
> REPLICA IDENTITY FULL,
> OWNER TO u1;
> NOTICE: ALTER action ALTER COLUMN ... SET COMPRESSION on relation "m"
> does not affect present partitions
> NOTICE: ALTER action DISABLE RULE on relation "m" does not affect
> present partitions
> NOTICE: ALTER action ENABLE ROW SECURITY on relation "m" does not
> affect present partitions
> NOTICE: ALTER action FORCE ROW SECURITY on relation "m" does not affect
> present partitions
> NOTICE: ALTER action REPLICA IDENTITY on relation "m" does not affect
> present partitions
> NOTICE: ALTER action OWNER TO on relation "m" does not affect present
> partitions
> HINT: Partitions may be modified individually, or specify ONLY to
> suppress this message.
> ALTER TABLE
>
> ---
>
> ALTER TABLE ONLY m
> ALTER COLUMN b SET COMPRESSION pglz,
> ALTER COLUMN b SET COMPRESSION pglz,
> DISABLE RULE r,
> ENABLE ROW LEVEL SECURITY,
> FORCE ROW LEVEL SECURITY,
> REPLICA IDENTITY FULL,
> OWNER TO u1;
> ALTER TABLE
>
> ... which brings me to a few nitpicks:
>
> 1) A test containing multiple sub-commands in an ALTER TABLE (as shown
> above) would be nice.

Added a test case that contains multiple sub-commands.

> 2) There are some tests with misleading comments. For instance:
>
> -- set column attribute on partitioned table should get a notice
> ALTER TABLE list_parted4 ALTER COLUMN b SET (n_distinct = 0.2);
> ALTER TABLE list_parted4 ALTER COLUMN b RESET (n_distinct);
> ALTER TABLE ONLY list_parted4 ALTER COLUMN b SET (n_distinct = 0.2);
> ALTER TABLE ONLY list_parted4 ALTER COLUMN b RESET (n_distinct);
>
> The last two will not emit any NOTICE, since they're using the keyword
> ONLY. I'd say that either these ONLY tests need to be in a different
> code block with a proper comment, or the current comments need to be
> changed to make it clear, e.g. "set column attribute on partitioned
> table should get a NOTICE; ONLY suppresses the NOTICE"
>

I updated the comments like:
```
-- enable/disable rules on partitioned tables without ONLY should get a notice
```
“Without ONLY” should eliminate the confusion.

> I also reviewed the code and it LGTM!
>

Thanks a lot for your test and review.

PFA v6, addressed Jim’s comments as explained above.

Best regards,
--
Chao Li (Evan)
HighGo Software Co., Ltd.
https://www.highgo.com/