Re: Views, views, views! (long)

Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com>

From: Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com>
To: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Cc: PostgreSQL-development <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>
Date: 2005-05-05T05:01:47Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
Tom,

> To put it more bluntly: exactly what are you accomplishing here that
> isn't already accomplished, in a *truly* standard fashion, by the
> INFORMATION_SCHEMA?  Why do we need yet another nonstandard view on
> the underlying reality?

To quote myself:

Q: Why not just use information_schema?
A: Because the columns and layout of information_schema is strictly defined by 
the SQL standard.  This prevents it from covering all PostgreSQL objects, or 
from covering the existing objects adequately to replicate a CREATE 
statement.  As examples, there is no "types" table in information_schema, and 
the "constraints" table assumes that constraint names are universally unique 
instead of table-unique as they are in PG.

-- 
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco