Re: update db doesnt work

Steve Lane <slane@fmpro.com> writes:
> Does this limit only apply to a "defined table" (such as a table or view) ro
> does it also apply to the result of any select, for example a two-table join
> which would have 1601 output columns?

It would apply to anything that forms a tuple, so yes a join output is
restricted.  The source-code comments may be illuminating:

/*
 * MaxHeapAttributeNumber limits the number of (user) columns in a table.
 * The key limit on this value is that the size of the fixed overhead for
 * a tuple, plus the size of the null-values bitmap (at 1 bit per column),
 * plus MAXALIGN alignment, must fit into t_hoff which is uint8.  On most
 * machines the absolute upper limit without making t_hoff wider would be
 * about 1700.    Note, however, that depending on column data types you will
 * likely also be running into the disk-block-based limit on overall tuple
 * size if you have more than a thousand or so columns.  TOAST won't help.
 */
#define MaxHeapAttributeNumber    1600    /* 8 * 200 */

I am not sure that we are careful to check natts <=
MaxHeapAttributeNumber everywhere that we really should.  It could be
that you would see an error (or buggy behavior:-() in the join case only
if there were actually some nulls in a created tuple.  But IMHO the
system ought to reject the attempt to form the join to begin with...

            regards, tom lane