Subject: Re: Reordering the fields in a table
To: Laurenz Albe <laurenz.albe@cybertec.at>
Cc: "Campbell, Lance" <lance@illinois.edu>,
 "pgsql-admin@lists.postgresql.org" <pgsql-admin@lists.postgresql.org>
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From: MichaelDBA <MichaelDBA@sqlexec.com>
Message-ID: <54355fa4-5f29-85cd-b1e2-d28fbebf5661@sqlexec.com>
Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2021 16:24:39 -0400
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Right on, Laurenz!

Laurenz Albe wrote on 4/16/2021 3:54 PM:
> On Fri, 2021-04-16 at 16:15 +0000, Campbell, Lance wrote:
>> I would love to see an enhancement to PostgreSQL where administrators had some way to reorder the fields in their tables.
>>   
>> Why is this a big deal?
>> The one issue that causes me the most grief is the readability of tables.  When you manage 17 services
>>   where you are continually tweaking the system you find the tables are very unreadable.
>> New fields are continually added to the bottom of tables. They are just not readable.
> There is a misconception here.
> Database tables are not designed for human consumption.
> If you want to present your table data in a readable format, you need a front end application.
> Arranging table columns is the job of such a tool.
>
> If you want to do it in the database, use a view.
> Simple views that just reorder the columns are updatable, so you could just
> use those instead of the underlying tables in your statements.
>
> Yours,
> Laurenz Albe