Re: Add column if not exists (CINE)

Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> We can artificially make this problem as complicated as we wish, but
> the people who are asking for this feature (including me) will, I
> believe, be quite happy with a solution that throws, say, a NOTICE
> instead of an ERROR when the object already exists, and then returns
> without doing anything further. There are very few, if any,
> definitional issues here, except by people who are brainstorming crazy
> alternative behaviors whose actual usefulness I very much doubt.

> CREATE OR REPLACE is indeed much more complicated. In fact, for
> tables, I maintain that you'll need to link with -ldwim to make it
> work properly.

This may in fact be an appropriate way to handle the case for tables,
given the complexity of their definitions. However, the original
point of the thread was about what to do for columns. I still say
that COR rather than CINE semantics would be appropriate for columns.

regards, tom lane