On Tue, Apr 25, 2006 at 12:25:35PM -0500, Jim C. Nasby wrote: > Is there anything in comments/docs/list archives about why catalog > access uses a bunch of 'magic' instead of treating catalog tables the > same as every other table? I realize that ultimately you have to > bootstrap somehow (kinda hard to read from pg_class if the info needed > to do so is in pg_class), but perhaps switching over to the regular > access methods after the system is up would be worth-while.
I don't know if it's explicitly documented, but here's one mail that describes some of the issues: http://www.thelinuxreview.com/pgsql-hackers/2005-03/msg00840.php I think the basic problem is that DDL can't really work within a transaction. If I do an ALTER TABLE, some of these changes need to show up to concurrent transactions (maybe creating a unique index?). I think it's like Tom says in that email, it could be done, but the cost/benefit ratio isn't very good... Have a nice day, -- Martijn van Oosterhout <kleptog@svana.org> http://svana.org/kleptog/ > From each according to his ability. To each according to his ability to > litigate.
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