Re: Thoughts on "SELECT * EXCLUDING (...) FROM ..."?

From: Pavel Stehule <pavel(dot)stehule(at)gmail(dot)com>
To: Christopher Browne <cbbrowne(at)gmail(dot)com>
Cc: Darren Duncan <darren(at)darrenduncan(dot)net>, Eric Ridge <eebbrr(at)gmail(dot)com>, "Joshua D(dot) Drake" <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com>, Mark Mielke <mark(at)mark(dot)mielke(dot)cc>, David Wilson <david(dot)t(dot)wilson(at)gmail(dot)com>, pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: Thoughts on "SELECT * EXCLUDING (...) FROM ..."?
Date: 2011-10-31 03:50:17
Message-ID: CAFj8pRDuJgYyU_ZG1mddS0TW41hA8F=Kq+aE86xUqu8cxNU9Sg@mail.gmail.com
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2011/10/31 Christopher Browne <cbbrowne(at)gmail(dot)com>:
> There is legitimate reason to reject this on the basis of nondeterminism.
>
> While we are surely obliged to "hold our noses" and support "SELECT *", as:
> A) The SQL standard obliges us, and
> B) People already use it a lot,
>
> Neither of those factors hold true for the EXCLUDING notion.  So all things
> are decidedly not equal.
>
> By all means I find it an interesting feature, but that shouldn't be
> mistaken for necessarily being a desirable feature.
>
> I don't think I wish it.  We're telling our developers not to use "select
> *", and I don't think having "select * except " would change that policy,
> beyond requiring us to waste time explaining :
>

+1

It can carry some new problems with cache - actually we don't need
rebuild views after additing column to table or view

Pavel

> "No, we're not changing policy.  The fact that PGDG added this to 9.2 does
> *not* imply our policy was wrong."

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