On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 06:53:27PM +0000, Simon Riggs wrote: > On 21 March 2014 17:49, Noah Misch <n...@leadboat.com> wrote: > > >> > alter table information_schema.triggers set (security_barrier = true); > >> > >> I find it hard to justify why we accept such a statement. Surely its a > >> bug when the named table turns out to be a view? Presumably ALTER > >> SEQUENCE and ALTER <other stuff> has checks for the correct object > >> type? OMG. > > > > We've framed ALTER TABLE's relkind leniency as a historic artifact. As a > > move > > toward stricter checks, ALTER TABLE refused to operate on foreign tables in > > 9.1 and 9.2. 9.3 reversed that course, though. For better or worse, ALTER > > TABLE is nearly a union of the relation ALTER possibilities. That choice is > > well-entrenched. > > By "well entrenched", I think you mean undocumented, untested, unintentional?
It's deliberate; a -hackers discussion revisits it perhaps once a year. The ALTER VIEW documentation says: For historical reasons, ALTER TABLE can be used with views too; but the only variants of ALTER TABLE that are allowed with views are equivalent to the ones shown above. ALTER INDEX and ALTER SEQUENCE say something similar. > Do we think anyone *relies* on being able to say the word TABLE when > in fact they mean VIEW or SEQUENCE? pg_dump emits statements that exercise it: psql -c 'create view v as select 1 as c; alter view v alter c set default 0;' pg_dump --table v | grep ALTER > How is that artefact anything but a bug? i.e. is anyone going to stop > me fixing it? It's not the behavior I would choose for a new product, but I can't see benefits sufficient to overturn previous decisions to keep it. -- Noah Misch EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
