From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: =?utf-8?Q?=C3=81lvaro?= Herrera <alvherre@kurilemu.de>
cc: Bertrand Drouvot <bertranddrouvot.pg@gmail.com>,
        Michael Paquier <michael@paquier.xyz>,
        Chao Li <li.evan.chao@gmail.com>,
        "L. pgsql-hackers" <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>,
        Fujii Masao <masao.fujii@gmail.com>,
        Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org>,
        Jeff Davis <pgsql@j-davis.com>,
        Ashutosh Bapat <ashutosh.bapat.oss@gmail.com>,
        Amit Kapila <amit.kapila16@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Fix unqualified catalog references in psql describe queries
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Comments: In-reply-to =?utf-8?Q?=C3=81lvaro?= Herrera <alvherre@kurilemu.de>
	message dated "Mon, 15 Jun 2026 19:08:22 +0200"
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Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2026 13:22:56 -0400
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=?utf-8?Q?=C3=81lvaro?= Herrera <alvherre@kurilemu.de> writes:
> My proposal would be that all operators, both system-defined as well as
> user-defined, live in a single namespace -- not that we forbid them from
> being created.

Exactly how does that improve anyone's life?  It will certainly not
improve query security, rather the reverse.  You could no longer put
less-trusted stuff into a schema that's not in your search_path.

Yes, it would stop people from creating operators that are exact
duplicates of system operators, but those are not the problem:
user-defined operators like that are already masked by the lookup
rules, assuming that pg_catalog is searched first as is the normal
case.  The thing that is dangerous is a user-defined operator that
is made to capture cases that lack an exact system-operator match
(say, varchar = text).  AFAICS your proposal puts those on exactly the
same footing as system-defined operators, and there is no recourse.

			regards, tom lane