Re: remove WITHOUT OIDS syntax for v19

On Wed, Jul 16, 2025 at 08:06:44AM +0800, Junwang Zhao wrote:
> Sorry I didn't mention the reason why I think WITHOUT OIDS should be removed.
>
> WITHOUT OIDS has been a backward-compatible syntax for 6 years, so I
> think maybe not too many users use it nowadays. Besides, there are
> some hints in the code base that `WITHOUT OIDS` and `with (oids =
> false)` will be removed someday(see the following diff), so I wonder
> which day should it be?

This is the zone where we would break stuff only for the sake of
breaking it, so it would be annoying for any existing applications
after a major upgrade. Keeping this code is not really a maintenance
burden AFAIK, we can just let it be.

When the WITH OIDS grammar was removed, there were arguments about
code simplifications and ease of support for table access methods,
which had and still have long-term benefits. We still have
default_with_oids in guc_tables.c, for example. That's a nobrainer to
keep it in the GUC tables, and we avoid breaking the world.
--
Michael