On Wed, Dec 8, 2010 at 1:37 PM, Chris Browne <cbbro...@acm.org> wrote: > t...@sss.pgh.pa.us (Tom Lane) writes: >> "Kevin Grittner" <kevin.gritt...@wicourts.gov> writes: >>> Robert Haas <robertmh...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>> Simon Riggs <si...@2ndquadrant.com> wrote: >>>>> Note that DB2 uses the table modifier VOLATILE to indicate a >>>>> table that has a widely fluctuating table size, for example a >>>>> queue table. >> >>>> the fact that DB2 uses that word to mean something entirely >>>> different is certainly a bit awkward >> >>> It would be especially awkward should someone port their DB2 >>> database to PostgreSQL without noticing the semantic difference, and >>> then find their data missing. >> >> Not to mention that DB2 syntax tends to appear in the standard a few >> years later. > > And the term "volatile" has well-understood connotations that are > analagous to those in DB2 in the C language and various descendants. > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volatile_variable> > > I'm not sure "UNLOGGED" is perfect... If "TEMPORARY" weren't already > taken, it would be pretty good. > > Other possibilities include TRANSIENT, EPHEMERAL, TRANSIENT, TENUOUS. > > FLASH would be an amusing choice. "PostgreSQL 9.1, now with support for > FLASH!"
The value of VOLATILE, I felt, was that it's sort of like a volatile variable in C: it might suddenly change under you. I think that TRANSIENT and EPHEMERAL and TENUOUS all imply that the table itself is either temporary or, in the last case, not very dense, which isn't really what we want to convey. I did consider EPHEMERAL myself, but the more I think about it, the more wrong it sounds. Even the table's contents are not really short-lived - they may easily last for months or years. You just shouldn't rely on it. I cracked up this morning imagining calling this CREATE UNRELIABLE TABLE, but I'm starting to think UNLOGGED is as well as we're going to do. -- Robert Haas EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers