Re: per-column generic option

I haven't looked at the patch yet, but here are a few comments on the
design, which overall looks good.

2011/6/14 Shigeru Hanada <shigeru(dot)hanada(at)gmail(dot)com>:
> 1) psql should support describing per-column generic options, so \dec
> command was added.  If the form \dec+ is used, generic options are also
> displayed.  Output sample is:

I would not add a new backslash command for this - it's unlikely to be
useful to see this information across all tables. It would be more
helpful to somehow (not sure of the details) incorporate this into the
output of running \d on a foreign table.

> Here I found an inconsistency about privilege to see generic options
> (not only column but also FDW and server et al).  The
> information_schema.*_options only shows options which are associated to
> objects that current user can access, but \de*+ doesn't have such
> restriction.  \de* commands should be fixed to hide forbidden objects?

It's less important whether \de* is consistent with information_schema
in this regard than it is whether it is consistent with other psql
backslash commands, e.g. \dv or \db or \dC. AFAIK those commands do
not filter by privilege.

> 1) Is "generic options" proper term to mean FDW-specific option
> associated to a FDW object?  It's used in the SQL/MED standard, but
> seems not popular...  "FDW option" would be better than "generic option"?

I think FDW option is much clearer.

--
Robert Haas
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