Re: How to turn off TOAST on a table/column

In article <3C03F6A0(dot)1010702(at)xythos(dot)com>, "Barry Lind" <barry(at)xythos(dot)com>
wrote:

> So how do I create a table without toast enabled? I have looked through
> the docs for 'create table' and didn't see anything that indicates this
> is possible. Is there some undocumented syntax?
>

One of the additions in my "TOAST slicing" patch is the provision of
ALTER TABLE x ALTER COLUMN y SET STORAGE {EXTERNAL | PLAIN | EXTENDED |
MAIN} -but, in short, it sets attstorage (in pg_attribute) for the
appropriate column, which has the effect of forcing certain TOAST
behaviour.

For the moment, you could just set attstorage to 'e' which will turn off
compression (but still use the second table), or 'm' which will turn off the use
of the external table for that attribute (or 'p' which will do both). Note that
fixed-length types must have attstorage 'p' (by fixed length I mean things
like integer etc. -- varchar(n) is a variable-length type.)

Obviously all the usual caveats about altering system catalogs apply...

Regards

John
--
John Gray
Azuli IT http://www.azuli.co.uk +44 121 693 3397
jgray(at)azuli(dot)co(dot)uk