Re: Can't drop table (repost)

> Jeremy Buchmann <jeremy(at)wellsgaming(dot)com> writes:
>> I have a weird situation here...I'm trying to drop a table, but it tells me
>> that "Relation 'xxxxxxx' inherits 'mytable'". So I renamed mytable to
>> myoldtable and created a new mytable. Now, the new mytable is missing the
>> fields I was trying to add, and when I try to drop it, it says "Relation
>> 'xxxxxxx' inherits 'mytable'". And when I try to drop myoldtable, it says
>> "Relation 'xxxxxxx' inherits 'myoldtable'". How do I get out of this mess?
>
> You can't drop a table that has inheritance children --- you have to
> drop the children first. And renaming tables doesn't affect the
> inheritance relationships.

Okay great, but how do I know what tables I need to drop if it just gives me
a number? That 'xxxxxxx' is just some number like '8892659'. Where is the
mapping from number->name? And do you think this inheritance "feature"
could be mentioned in the user guide?

>> Also, I noticed some tables named like pg_temp.1970.0 and such. They seem
>> to contain some junk data from queries or something, but it won't let me
>> delete them...how can I get rid of them?
>
> Those are temp tables; if a backend crashed while it had a temp table
> created, then you'd see the leftover tables. Offhand I think you won't
> be allowed to delete 'em unless you restart the postmaster with the
> allow-system-table-mods switch.

It is possible that these temp tables could be inherited from the "mytable"
mentioned above...if I removed them with the allow-system-table-mods, would
that fix the pg_inherits table so that mytable could be removed?

--Jeremy