On Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 3:38 PM, Mark Mielke <m...@mark.mielke.cc> wrote: > Stupid question: > > Is this just a display thing?
Well, it's a "display thing" as much as any SELECT statement (especially via psql) is a "display thing". It's more like "I want all 127 columns, except the giant ::xml column, and I'm too lazy to type each column name out by hand". > Or does this have impact for things such as COUNT(*) vs COUNT(1)? If it does, it's broken. > Is it "like a view, but on the fly"? Naw, it's just short-hand for omitting columns from the output target list. As I'm envisioning the feature, it would be SQL-level syntax, so you could bake it into a view, but... > 1) Not standards compliant, Sure, no doubt. I think the "::typename" syntax is not standards compliant either, and I bet I'm not the only Postgres user to use that every day. But I secretly tend to agree, I wouldn't necessarily want to use this in production/application code. > 2) Not deterministic (i.e. a database change might cause my code to break), Okay, I'm inventing a use-case here, but say you have a "users" table with various bits of metadata about the user, including password. Maybe, regardless of database changes, you never want the password column returned: SELECT * EXCLUDING (password) FROM tbl_users; Changes of omission can break your code just as easily. > 3) Working around a problem that maybe shouldn't exist in the first place? > It's > a like buying a rug, so that nobody sees the scratches on the floor. Sometimes, rugs are cheaper than new floors. eric -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
