On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 11:20 AM, Jim Nasby <j...@nasby.net> wrote: > On Jun 11, 2011, at 9:36 PM, Robert Haas wrote: >>> This is at least a use-case for something^Wfeature like 'create >>> synonym', allowing smooth end-user's application upgrade on schema >>> update. I am not claiming that we need that, it just seems a good >>> usecase for column alias/synonym. >> >> I had the same thought. I'm not sure that this particular example >> would be worthwhile even if we had a column synonym facility. But at >> least if we were bent on changing it we could do it without breaking >> things. > > A synonym feature would definitely be useful for cases like this. We have a > poorly named database at work; it's been that way for years and the only > reason it's never been cleaned up is because it would require simultaneously > changing config settings in dozens of places on hundreds of machines (many of > which are user machines, which makes performing the change very difficult). > As annoying as dealing with the oddball name is (there's a number of pieces > of code that have to special case it), it would be even more painful to fix > the problem. If we had database name synonyms we could create a synonym and > migrate everything over time... and in the meantime, code could stop > special-casing it.
That's probably the best explanation of why synonyms would be useful I believe I've yet heard. -- Robert Haas EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
