On Fri, Aug 21, 2020 at 08:41:54PM -0700, David G. Johnston wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 21, 2020 at 2:58 PM Bruce Momjian <br...@momjian.us> wrote:
> Good idea. People have been confused about this before. Attached is a
> patch.
>
>
> + It is also possible to access the file as a foreign data wrapper
> + using <xref linkend="file-fdw"/>.
>
> Seems more accurate to say "It is also possible to access the file as a
> foreign
> table, using the supplied <xref linkend="file-fdw"/> module."
>
> The file_fdw -> config change looks good.
OK, updated patch attached.
> A bit off-topic, but since this is being touched anyway - the listing of
> fields
> in the paragraph is not particularly readable (but maybe we want to keep it
> for
> accessibility reasons?) while the CREATE TABLE statement is very readable and
> more accurate, though it could be better. Adding CHECK constraints and --
> comments to the CREATE TABLE command would be a welcome addition. In
> particular I noticed:
>
> paragraph: client host:port number
> example: connection_from text,
>
> could become:
>
> connection_from text check(connection_from ~ '^[^:]+:[0-9]+$) -- the host and
> port of the client, colon-separated
>
> I've been mentally playing around with the idea of having the Config section
> with the CREATE TABLE somehow describe both the plain table and foreign table
> variants directly and removing the example from the file_fdw section and
> instead leaving the cross-references in place from file_fdw to config to see
> the example and from config to file_fdw to get clarity on the options and the
> SERVER syntax. As they are being written for copy-and-paste though, and it's
> not like we are going to change the format, having the table definition
> duplicated isn't a terrible option. But consolidation is something to
> consider.
>
> I may pick this up in the future unless someone thinks it wouldn't be a good
> idea. I would be removing the paragraph of field names and make the table
> specification authoritative.
I am a little worried about adding this since the data is generated in
an automated way, and might change, or some config value might change
its format. I think the example is to show how to load, and adding extra
constraints would just detract from the illustration, I think.
--
Bruce Momjian <br...@momjian.us> https://momjian.us
EnterpriseDB https://enterprisedb.com
The usefulness of a cup is in its emptiness, Bruce Lee
diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/config.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/config.sgml
index 7a7177c550..cfb8a0ae85 100644
--- a/doc/src/sgml/config.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/config.sgml
@@ -7075,6 +7075,8 @@ CREATE TABLE postgres_log
<programlisting>
COPY postgres_log FROM '/full/path/to/logfile.csv' WITH csv;
</programlisting>
+ It is also possible to access the file as a foreign table, using
+ the supplied <xref linkend="file-fdw"/> module.
</para>
<para>
diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/file-fdw.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/file-fdw.sgml
index ed028e4ec9..c3e40f435c 100644
--- a/doc/src/sgml/file-fdw.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/file-fdw.sgml
@@ -215,7 +215,9 @@
<para>
One of the obvious uses for <literal>file_fdw</literal> is to make
the PostgreSQL activity log available as a table for querying. To
- do this, first you must be logging to a CSV file, which here we
+ do this, first you must be <link
+ linkend="runtime-config-logging-csvlog">logging to a CSV file,</link>
+ which here we
will call <literal>pglog.csv</literal>. First, install <literal>file_fdw</literal>
as an extension:
</para>
