Re: [PATCH] Add pg_get_table_ddl() to reconstruct CREATE TABLE statements

On Wed, Jul 1, 2026 at 8:41 PM Marcos Pegoraro <marcos(at)f10(dot)com(dot)br> wrote:

> Em qua., 1 de jul. de 2026 às 11:12, Akshay Joshi <
> akshay(dot)joshi(at)enterprisedb(dot)com> escreveu:
>
>> pretty, owner, tablespace, and schema_qualified are plain boolean
>> parameters with DEFAULT values
>> *Filtering parameters:* *only_kinds* / *except_kinds* as text[]
>>
>>> If all parameters are optional, and all parameters are boolean, perhaps
> you could also make pretty, owner, tablespace, and schema_qualified as
> optional parts of only_kinds and except_kinds.
>
> Therefore, we could call these two ways and the result would be the same.
> pg_get_table_ddl('idxd'::regclass, owner => false, tablespace => false, except_kinds
> => '{primary_key}');
> pg_get_table_ddl('idxd'::regclass, except_kinds => '{primary_key,
> tablespace,owner}');
>
> Obviously this way you have to know if owner param is false or it exists
> on except_kinds.
> What do you think ?
>

*owner* is the one case where it could work, but to make it consistent with
how owner behaves in pg_get_tablespace_ddl and pg_get_database_ddl, we
should not add it.

*tablespace* doesn't map to a kind at all. It controls the inline
TABLESPACE clause within the CREATE TABLE statement body it's a sub-clause,
not a separate statement. If we added tablespace as a kind, except_kinds =>
'{table,tablespace}' would be wrong (if you're skipping the table
statement, there's no inline clause to suppress), and except_kinds =>
'{tablespace}' would imply skipping a standalone statement that doesn't
exist.

*pretty* and *schema_qualified* are rendering/formatting options, not
statement filters. They affect how every statement is rendered —
indentation, name qualification — not which statements are emitted. Putting
them in except_kinds conflates two orthogonal axes: filtering (what to
emit) and formatting (how to emit it).

The current design intentionally keeps these separate:
only_kinds/except_kinds for statement-level filtering, booleans for
rendering and inline-clause control. Merging them would make except_kinds
overloaded and harder to document clearly.
>
> regards
> Marcos
>