Re: Proposal for SYNONYMS

On Thu, 9 Mar 2006, Tom Lane wrote:

> Stephan Szabo <sszabo(at)megazone(dot)bigpanda(dot)com> writes:
> > On Thu, 9 Mar 2006, Josh Berkus wrote:
> >> 2) For my comprehension, what's the difference between a SYNONYM and a
> >> single-object (possibly updatable) view?
>
> > I think with the plan as described, the permissions handling is slightly
> > different from how we handle views. As I understood the synonym plan, a
> > person with select on the synonym but not on the referenced table wouldn't
> > be able to select through the synonym, while if the view was created by
> > someone with select a person with select on the view could select through
> > the view.
>
> I was under the impression that privileges on the synonym wouldn't mean
> anything at all, with the exception that we'd track its ownership to
> determine who is allowed to drop the synonym.
>
> The point about views is a good one. I don't buy the argument that
> "we should do synonyms instead of updatable views because it's easier".
> We *will* do updatable views at some point because (a) the spec requires
> it and (b) it's clearly useful. I'm not eager to be stuck with synonyms
> forever because somebody thought they could implement one and not the
> other.

Well, the permissions handling would still be different between a view and
a synonym AFAICS even if we dropped separate permissions on synonyms, so I
don't think they're drop in replacements for each other even after
updatable views.