"David G. Johnston" <david.g.johns...@gmail.com> writes: > On Mon, Nov 14, 2022 at 9:41 AM Robert Haas <robertmh...@gmail.com> wrote: >> The overhead of fetching the information is not large, but Justin is >> concerned about the effect on the display width. I feel that's kind of >> a lost cause because it's so wide already anyway, but I don't see a >> reason why we need *two* new columns. Can't we get by with just one? >> It could be overflowed true/false, or it could be the number of >> subtransaction XIDs but with NULL instead if overflowed.
> NULL when overflowed seems like the opposite of the desired effect, calling > attention to the exceptional status. Make it a text column and write > "overflow" or "###" as appropriate. Anyone using the column is going to > end up wanting to special-case overflow anyway and number-to-text > conversion aside from overflow is simple enough if a number, and not just a > display label, is needed. I'd vote for just overflowed true/false. Why do people need to know the exact number of subtransactions? (If there is a use-case, that would definitely be material for an auxiliary function instead of a view column.) regards, tom lane