Re: pg_rawdump

Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>

From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: "Stephen R. van den Berg" <srb@cuci.nl>
Cc: Roberto Mello <roberto.mello@gmail.com>, Greg Stark <gsstark@mit.edu>, pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
Date: 2010-10-20T14:28:49Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
"Stephen R. van den Berg" <srb@cuci.nl> writes:
> It's just that matching table and file, and subsequently figuring out
> some missing columns which may have been added/removed later,
> can be rather timeconsuming and could be made a lot easier (not necessarily
> perfect) if that information would have been present in the first page of
> a file.

So you've already moved the goalposts from what was claimed in your
prior message.  If the data is not maintained (with 100% reliability)
during ALTER TABLE, how are you going to do something like "figure out
missing columns"?

I can see the potential usefulness of a self-documenting table storage
format, but this proposal isn't that; it's just an unreliable kluge.

			regards, tom lane