Re: Wiki Page Draft for upcoming release

On 2014-03-18 16:19:01 -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> Andres Freund <andres@2ndquadrant.com> writes:
> > On 2014-03-18 19:28:53 +0000, Greg Stark wrote:
> >> It would be nice to be able to tell people that if they vacuum, then
> >> reindex and check all their foreign key constraints then they should
> >> be ok.
> 
> > I don't think so:
> > http://archives.postgresql.org/message-id/20140317233919.GS16438%40awork2.anarazel.de
> 
> > I still think a rewriting noop ALTER TABLE ... ALTER COLUMN col TYPE
> > old_type USING (col); is the only real thing to do.
> 
> Unfortunately, the operative word in that is "noop".  Didn't you see
> http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/11964.1395100860@sss.pgh.pa.us

Huh, that somehow never arrived here. Very odd.

> It would have helped before we put in the transform smarts, but now
> it's too smart.

Gna. Hm, what about: USING (COALESCE(columnname, NULL));

That still seems to work.

Greetings,

Andres Freund

-- Andres Freund                       http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training &
Services