Re: Support EXCEPT for TABLES IN SCHEMA publications

On Tue, Apr 14, 2026 at 2:05 PM shveta malik <shveta(dot)malik(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Apr 14, 2026 at 1:03 PM Peter Smith <smithpb2250(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, Apr 14, 2026 at 4:30 PM Nisha Moond <nisha(dot)moond412(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi hackers,
> > >
> > > Following earlier work to support EXCEPT for FOR ALL TABLES [1]
> > > publications, starting this thread to extend the same capability to
> > > schema-level publications (TABLES IN SCHEMA).
> >
> > Hi Nisha.
> >
> > +1 for adding this new kind of exclusion clause to CREATE PUBLICATION command.
> >
> > >
> > > Currently, TABLES IN SCHEMA publishes all tables in a schema with no
> > > way to exclude a subset. Users who want to skip a few tables must
> > > switch to an explicit FOR TABLE list, which loses the convenience of
> > > schema-level publishing and requires ongoing maintenance as tables are
> > > added.
> > >
> > > Proposed syntax:
> > > ------------------------
> > > CREATE PUBLICATION pub FOR TABLES IN SCHEMA s1 EXCEPT (s1.t1, s1.t2);
> > > ALTER PUBLICATION pub ADD TABLES IN SCHEMA s1 EXCEPT (s1.t1);
> > > ALTER PUBLICATION pub SET TABLES IN SCHEMA s1 EXCEPT (s1.t1);
> > >
> > > Note: Tables in the EXCEPT clause must be schema-qualified to avoid
> > > ambiguity and must belong to the published schema; otherwise, an error
> > > is raised.
> > >
> >
> > The proposed syntax is almost, but not quite, what I was anticipating.
> > IMO the syntax shouldn't just be similar to the FOR ALL TABLES EXCEPT;
> > It can be *identical* to it. e.g., your examples are missing the
> > 'TABLE' keyword necessary to achieve the same command flexibility.
> > Furthermore, what is the ambiguity referred to? An excluded table is
> > clearly associated with the preceding schema. Can't the code infer the
> > schema internally even when it is not provided by the user? Of course,
> > the user *can* specify a schema-qualified name if they want to, but I
> > didn't see why we are forcing that rule upon them.
>
> +1. I also feel specifying only the table name is clear enough. Or are
> we referring to implementation complexity here?
>

I think it will add complexity. Consider an example:
CREATE PUBLICATION pub FOR TABLES IN SCHEMA s1, s2, s3 EXCEPT (t1, t2);

So, which schema's exclusion list will these tables should be
considered for? Say, if table with name t1 is present in all schemas
then shall we exclude from all schemas or just consider it excluded
from the first one (s1)?

--
With Regards,
Amit Kapila.