Re: managing tablespaces like files?

Sam Carleton wrote:
> The server of my client/server program is currently using SQLite, an
> embedded file based SQL engine.  I am looking for a client/server
> based RDBM and have narrowed it down to either PosgreSQL or Firebird.
>  I would prefer to use PosgreSQL, but the management of the physical
> files are concerning me.
>
> A very key element of the program I am developing is the ability for
> the user to pickup one folder that contains all the data for that
> "document" and copy it somewhere else, then allow the program to read
> it from that other location.  It is equally important that when the
> database server initially start, if one of the "tablespaces" was
> deleted by the user, the database be none the wiser.
>
> This is, of course, not a problem with Firebird since it is file
> based.  What I could do is simply disconnect from the tablespace each
> and every time the server program shutdown and reconnect to that
> tablespace each time the server starts up, pointing to a new
> tablespace if need be.  So how would one:
>
> 1: "disconnect" from a tablespace, in such a way that the tablespace,
> nor it's contents is changed.
> 2: "connect" to an existing tablespace.

I don't think PostgreSQL is going to work for you if thats a
requirement.   A tablespace doesn't contain the metadata for the items
in it, thats stored in the main cluster space (pg_catalog, etc)