Re: where-used function

[Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>]

"Kevin Duffy" <KD(at)wrinvestments(dot)com> writes:
> It would be very helpful, if I had a where-used function.  This
> function, given an object name, would determine
> if the object exists in the database ( i.e. is it a table or a view)
> and then, most important, what other objects are dependant on the
> object.

The traditional manual way to do the latter is

	begin;
	drop <object>;
	... read the error message about what the drop would cascade to ...
	rollback;

If you feel like getting down-and-dirty with the implementation you
could troll the contents of pg_depend for yourself.  I think it would
be kind of painful to do without writing some C code though, because
a lot of useful operations like getObjectDescription() aren't exposed
at the SQL level.

			regards, tom lane