Re: BUG #1794: inheritance removes permissions from the parent table

On Thu, Jul 28, 2005 at 03:56:14PM +0100, Sean Burlington wrote:
> Michael Fuhr wrote:
> > On Thu, Jul 28, 2005 at 12:48:35PM +0100, Sean Burlington wrote:
> >
> >>Description:        inheritance removes permissions from the parent table
> >
> > I think a more accurate description would be "permissions not
> > inherited by children," and that isn't necessarily a bug.
>
> I agree it may not be a bug - but it's more than the permissions not
> being inherited: the parent is affected.

Not really, once you understand what's happening.  Unless you use
FROM ONLY, selecting from the parent selects from the parent *and*
its children.  The parent itself isn't affected, as queries with
FROM ONLY should demonstrate.  I understand what you're saying --
that there's an apparent effect on the parent -- but there really
isn't.

> It would be handy if this was in the documentation for anyone else who
> comes across this issue

Feel free to submit a documentation patch to pgsql-patches :-)

> Would it be possible to allow the usual select and just return the
> records the user has permission for - possibly along with a warning
> about the child table?

I think you'd have a hard time selling that to the developers,
because a query that returns successfully but with an incomplete
record set isn't solving any problem.  If the problem is inadequate
documentation, then the correct solution is to fix the documentation.

--
Michael Fuhr
http://www.fuhr.org/~mfuhr/