On Mon, Jul 18, 2022 at 09:22:24PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote: > Bruce Momjian <br...@momjian.us> writes: > > On Sat, Jul 16, 2022 at 10:53:17AM +0200, Peter Eisentraut wrote: > >> Maybe this whole notion that "system views" is one thing is not suitable. > > > Are you thinking we should just call the chapter "System Catalogs and > > Views" and just place them alphabetically in a single chapter? > > I didn't think that was Peter's argument at all. He's complaining > that "system views" isn't a monolithic category, which is a reasonable > point, especially since we have a bunch of built-in views that appear > in other chapters. But to then also confuse them with catalogs isn't > improving the situation.
I think I see now --- system _tables_ are really not for user consumption but system views often are. I am thinking the best approach is to move most of the system views out of the system views section and into the sections where they make sense. > The views that are actually reinterpretations of catalog contents should > probably be documented near the catalogs. But a lot of stuff in that > chapter is no such thing. For example, it's really unclear why Right. > pg_backend_memory_contexts is documented here and not somewhere near > the stats views. We also have stuff like pg_available_extensions, Right. > pg_file_settings, and pg_timezone_names, which are reporting ground truth > of some sort that didn't come from the catalogs. I'm not sure if those > belong near the catalogs or not. I am thinking some of those need to be in the Server Configuration chapter. > The larger point, perhaps, is that this whole area is underneath > "Part VII: Internals", and that being the case what you would expect > to find here is stuff that we don't intend people to interact with > in day-to-day usage. Most of the "system views" are specifically > intended for day-to-day use, maybe only by DBAs, but nonetheless they > are user-facing in a way that the catalogs aren't. > > Maybe we should move them all to Part IV, in a chapter or chapters > adjacent to the Information Schema chapter. Or maybe try to separate > "user" views from "DBA" views, and put user views in Part IV while > DBA views go into a new chapter in Part III, near the stats views. I am going to look at moving system views that make sense into the chapters where their contents are mentioned. I don't think having a central list of views is really helping us because we expect the views to be used in ways the system catalogs would not be. I will develop a proposed patch. -- Bruce Momjian <br...@momjian.us> https://momjian.us EDB https://enterprisedb.com Indecision is a decision. Inaction is an action. Mark Batterson
