Re: PROPERTY GRAPH pg_dump ACL minimization

Ashutosh Bapat <ashutosh.bapat.oss@gmail.com>

From: Ashutosh Bapat <ashutosh.bapat.oss@gmail.com>
To: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Cc: Noah Misch <noah@leadboat.com>, pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
Date: 2026-07-06T11:55:46Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
On Sat, Jul 4, 2026 at 9:21 PM Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
>
> Noah Misch <noah@leadboat.com> writes:
> > On Wed, Jul 01, 2026 at 09:51:13PM +0530, Ashutosh Bapat wrote:
> >> Since property graphs share the namespace with regular tables, I think
> >> GRANT ... TABLE should be supported on property graphs, but restrict
> >> it to only the privileges applicable to property graphs.
>
> > I don't have a strong opinion on that, but I likely would have chosen to block
> > GRANT TABLE on a propgraph.  The backward compatibility argument written for
> > SEQUENCE likely means that someone noticed GRANT TABLE worked on sequences and
> > decided both that it was a mistake and that reversing the mistake would be a
> > cure worse than the disease.
>
> My recollection is that there was an intentional policy change.
> Originally the idea was "why make people be careful about which
> kind of relation they're granting on?".  The arguments made
> against that included:
>
> * It's exposing an implementation detail, namely that sequences
> and tables live in the same catalog.  Admittedly that detail is
> also exposed by the fact that they can't share a name.
>
> * It doesn't comport very well with the fact that the sets of
> possible privileges are different.
>
> * It doesn't obey the SQL standard (I think, maybe someone will
> correct me).
>
> But you are entirely right that we felt that disallowing what used
> to work was worse than leaving it alone.  We need not duplicate that
> mistake for a new kind of relation, and should not.

Thanks for the clarification. I will change the patch to prohibit
using GRANT ... TABLE on a property graph.

-- 
Best Wishes,
Ashutosh Bapat