Horton

Re: cataloguing NOT NULL constraints

Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@alvh.no-ip.org>

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From: Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@alvh.no-ip.org>
To: Alexander Lakhin <exclusion@gmail.com>
Cc: Dean Rasheed <dean.a.rasheed@gmail.com>, Andrew Bille <andrewbille@gmail.com>, Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org>, Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>, pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org
Date: 2024-05-02T16:21:56Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers

Commits

Same data as JSON: GET /api/v1/messages/:b64id/commits the thread's linked commits as JSON, with link sources. API reference →

  1. Revert structural changes to not-null constraints

  2. Fix inconsistencies in error messages

  3. Disallow direct change of NO INHERIT of not-null constraints

  4. Disallow NO INHERIT not-null constraints on partitioned tables

  5. Better handle indirect constraint drops

  6. Don't try to assign smart names to constraints

  7. Fix restore of not-null constraints with inheritance

  8. ATTACH PARTITION: Don't match a PK with a UNIQUE constraint

  9. Fix propagating attnotnull in multiple inheritance

  10. Check stack depth in new recursive functions

  11. Move privilege check to the right place

  12. Update information_schema definition for not-null constraints

  13. Fix not-null constraint test

  14. Disallow changing NO INHERIT status of a not-null constraint

  15. Catalog not-null constraints

  16. parallel_schedule: add comment on event_trigger test dependency

  17. Revert "Catalog NOT NULL constraints" and fallout

  18. Adjust contrib/sepgsql regression test expected outputs.

  19. Fix table name clash in recently introduced test

  20. Catalog NOT NULL constraints

  21. Change the rules for inherited CHECK constraints to be essentially the same

Hello Alexander

On 2024-May-02, Alexander Lakhin wrote:

> Could you also clarify, please, how CREATE TABLE ... LIKE is expected to
> work with NOT NULL constraints?

It should behave identically to 16.  If in 16 you end up with a
not-nullable column, then in 17 you should get a not-null constraint.

> I wonder whether EXCLUDING CONSTRAINTS (ALL) should cover not-null
> constraints too. What I'm seeing now, is that:
> CREATE TABLE t1 (i int, CONSTRAINT nn NOT NULL i);
> CREATE TABLE t2 (LIKE t1 EXCLUDING ALL);
> \d+ t2
> -- ends with:
> Not-null constraints:
>     "nn" NOT NULL "i"

In 16, this results in
                                           Table "public.t2"
 Column │  Type   │ Collation │ Nullable │ Default │ Storage │ Compression │ Stats target │ Description 
────────┼─────────┼───────────┼──────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────────┼──────────────┼─────────────
 i      │ integer │           │ not null │         │ plain   │             │              │ 
Access method: heap

so the fact that we have a not-null constraint in pg17 is correct.


> Or a similar case with PRIMARY KEY:
> CREATE TABLE t1 (i int PRIMARY KEY);
> CREATE TABLE t2 (LIKE t1 EXCLUDING CONSTRAINTS EXCLUDING INDEXES);
> \d+ t2
> -- leaves:
> Not-null constraints:
>     "t2_i_not_null" NOT NULL "i"

Here you also end up with a not-nullable column in 16, so I made it do
that.

Now you could argue that EXCLUDING CONSTRAINTS is explicit in saying
that we don't want the constraints; but in that case why did 16 mark the
columns as not-null?  The answer seems to be that the standard requires
this.  Look at 11.3 <table definition> syntax rule 9) b) iii) 4):

  4) If the nullability characteristic included in LCDi is known not
  nullable, then let LNCi be NOT NULL; otherwise, let LNCi be the
  zero-length character string.

where LCDi is "1) Let LCDi be the column descriptor of the i-th column
of LT." and then

  5) Let CDi be the <column definition>
     LCNi LDTi LNCi


Now, you could claim that the standard doesn't mention
INCLUDING/EXCLUDING CONSTRAINTS, therefore since we have come up with
its definition then we should make it affect not-null constraints.
However, there's also this note:

  NOTE 520 — <column constraint>s, except for NOT NULL, are not included in
  CDi; <column constraint definition>s are effectively transformed to <table
  constraint definition>s and are thereby also excluded.

which is explicitly saying that not-null constraints are treated
differently; in essence, with INCLUDING CONSTRAINTS we choose to affect
the constraints that the standard says to ignore.


Thanks for looking!

-- 
Álvaro Herrera               48°01'N 7°57'E  —  https://www.EnterpriseDB.com/
"Learn about compilers. Then everything looks like either a compiler or
a database, and now you have two problems but one of them is fun."
            https://twitter.com/thingskatedid/status/1456027786158776329