Re: A Modest Upgrade Proposal

Tom Lane wrote:
> Simon Riggs <simon@2ndquadrant.com> writes:

> > pg_am has existed for decades without supporting DDL
> 
> That argument has been obsoleted by events ;-) ... and in any case, the
> reason we went without CREATE ACCESS METHOD for so long was not that we
> encouraged "INSERT INTO pg_am" but that non-core index AMs were
> effectively unsupported anyway, until we thought of a reasonable way to
> let them generate WAL.  Without the WAL stumbling block, I'm sure we would
> have built CREATE ACCESS METHOD long ago.

Note that the alternative to DDL-based replication handling is not
INSERT INTO pg_replication, but a function-based interface such as
SELECT pg_replication_node_create(foo, bar); so there's no need to
hardcode catalog definitions; nor there is a need to skip backup-ability
of logical replication config: pg_dump support can be added by having it
output function calls -- not catalog INSERTs!

The only difference between DDL and no DDL is that a function-based
interface can be added with a few pg_proc.h entries, whereas the DDL
stuff requires gram.y additions, new nodes, etc.

-- 
Álvaro Herrera                http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
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