Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2021 13:19:27 -0400
From: Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@alvh.no-ip.org>
To: "Campbell, Lance" <lance@illinois.edu>
Cc: "pgsql-admin@lists.postgresql.org" <pgsql-admin@lists.postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: Reordering the fields in a table
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On 2021-Apr-16, Campbell, Lance wrote:

> If there is a way to do this please let me know.
> 
> PostgreSQL Request
> I would love to see an enhancement to PostgreSQL where administrators
> had some way to reorder the fields in their tables.  As a software
> developer I can easily write a tool to reorder the fields in a table
> if there were no foreign keys.  But foreign keys throw an enormous
> hurdle in my way.

Yeah, this feature has been requested many times in the past.  It's a
tough nut to crack though, which is why it doesn't exist today.  I had a
patch partially working that did it, but there were a number of areas in
the code I couldn't figure out how to change, and after spending much
more time than I should have, I abandoned it.

I have learned a few more things since then, and maybe if I attempted it
now, I could make it work.  But I have no plans to work on that at
present.

It is not impossible, just pretty difficult.

-- 
Álvaro Herrera                            39°49'30"S 73°17'W
Officer Krupke, what are we to do?
Gee, officer Krupke, Krup you! (West Side Story, "Gee, Officer Krupke")