Re: Date created for tables

On 12/24/19 1:14 PM, Rob Sargent wrote:

If there's not enough time and motivation for the developers to implement CREATED_ON and LAST_ALTERED in pg_class, then you should have said that in the first place.  We're adults; we understand that OSS projects have limited resources, and won't go off and pout in the corner.

But that's not what y'all said.  "It's too complicated, mission creep, blah blah blah" just extended way too long.

Is there a list of purported uses cases for these two attributes (other than auditing)?  Especially anything to do with managing the data as they currently exist? 

I've used last_altered for comparing tables on Staging and Prod database. 

If, for example, the last_altered on a prod table is earlier than last_altered on the staging table, then that's a strong hint that the staging and prod schema are out of sync, and more detailed examination is required. 

Another example is that -- since username is also recorded in other RDBMSs --it's useful when the customer is screaming at your boss asking who made that unauthorized modification to production that's breaking their application.  You then show them that the table hasn't been altered in X months, and point the finger back at their incompetent developers.

All in all, it's not something that you use every day, but when it is useful, it's very useful.