From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: Álvaro Herrera <alvherre@alvh.no-ip.org>
Cc: Pg Hackers <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: bogus error message for ALTER TABLE ALTER CONSTRAINT
Date: Tue, 04 Mar 2025 16:50:28 -0500
Message-ID: <195582.1741125028@sss.pgh.pa.us> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <202503041822.aobpqke3igvb@alvherre.pgsql>
References: <202503041822.aobpqke3igvb@alvherre.pgsql>
=?utf-8?Q?=C3=81lvaro?= Herrera <alvherre@alvh.no-ip.org> writes:
> I just discovered that trying to set a foreign key as NO INHERIT in
> ALTER TABLE ALTER CONSTRAINT returns an absurd error message:
> create table pk (a int primary key);
> create table fk (a int references pk);
> alter table fk alter constraint fk_a_fkey deferrable, alter constraint fk_a_fkey no inherit;
> ERROR: ALTER CONSTRAINT statement constraints cannot be marked NO INHERIT
> The explanation is that somebody misunderstood what must be given to
> processCASbits in 2013. The intended message is:
> ERROR: FOREIGN KEY constraints cannot be marked NO INHERIT
Hmm. I agree that "ALTER CONSTRAINT statement" is off the
mark here, but I'm not convinced that "FOREIGN KEY" is entirely
on-point either. The grammar has no way of knowing what kind of
constraint is being targeted. I do see that ATExecAlterConstraint
currently rejects every other kind of constraint, but do we need
to think of a more generic phrase?
regards, tom lane
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To: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
Cc: tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us, alvherre@alvh.no-ip.org, pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org
Subject: Re: bogus error message for ALTER TABLE ALTER CONSTRAINT
In-Reply-To: <195582.1741125028@sss.pgh.pa.us>
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