Re: generic options for explain

On Sun, May 24, 2009 at 12:31 AM, Pavel Stehule <pavel.stehule@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello
>
> why we develop a new syntax?
>
> we should have a secondary function explain_query(query_string,
> option) that returns setof some. Next function should be
> explain_query_xml. I thing so for typical use EXPLAIN statement is
> enough. And for machine procession some new function should be
> perfect.

I agree. We shouldn't be overloading EXPLAIN with a new option every
time someone thinks of something new they'd like to see. XML EXPLAIN
output would obviously be extensible and machine readable. We could
easily produce a library of XSLT stylesheets to format the output in
different ways without cluttering the server with extra code. The
benefits to applications that want to read the output are also pretty
obvious.

-- 
Dave Page
EnterpriseDB UK:   http://www.enterprisedb.com