On Fri, 22 Apr 2016 19:11:46 -0700 Darren Duncan <darren at darrenduncan.net> wrote:
> The general case of a data type definition is an arbitrarily complex > predicate expression whose parts vary on the base type and other > factors. Given this, if component details of type definitions were > split out into their own table_info() columns, you'd have a large > number of columns where most are inapplicable in any given case, eg > some only apply to strings, some only to numbers, etc. And so, just > expressing the type definition as a SQL fragment like table_info() > currently does provides a compact generic representation with all the > details, same as in CREATE TABLE. INFORMATION_SCHEMA. It might not be "a compact generic representation", but it is something CREATE TABLE is not: a tabular representation. Something that can be queried instead of parsed. --jkl
