thread-index: AcLnp4Fwoh0MJAXPRvSrqCoIhXd1Tw==
Message-ID: <50119.80.177.99.193.1047374707.squirrel@ssl.vale-housing.co.uk>
Content-Class: urn:content-classes:message
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 09:25:07 -0000 (GMT)
Subject: Re: Roadmap for FE/BE protocol redesign
From: "Dave Page" <dpage@vale-housing.co.uk>
To: <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us>
In-Reply-To: <200303110227.h2B2R6n14056@candle.pha.pa.us>
References: <28363.1047343721@sss.pgh.pa.us>
	<200303110227.h2B2R6n14056@candle.pha.pa.us>
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Cc: <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>, <dpage@vale-housing.co.uk>,
	<pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>, <pgsql-interfaces@postgresql.org>
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It's rumoured that Bruce Momjian once said:
> Tom Lane wrote:
>> "Dave Page" <dpage@vale-housing.co.uk> writes:
>> > What about the addition of pg_attribute.attrelid &
>> > pg_attribute.attname/attnum in RowDesription messages to identify
>> > the underlying attribute (where appropriate)?
>>
>> Well, we can talk about it, but I still think that any frontend that
>> relies on such information is broken by design.  (And if that means
>> the JDBC spec is broken, then the JDBC spec is broken.)
>>
>> Just to start with, if I do "SELECT * FROM view", am I going to see
>> the info associated with the view column, or with the hypothetical
>> underlying table column?  (Actually, didn't I already make a list of a
>> bunch of ways in which this concept is underspecified?  AFAIR, you
>> didn't suggest answers to any of those questions ... but we need
>> answers to all of them if we are going to implement the feature.)
>
> I was willing to add a hack to enable default column labels to be
> "table.column" --- that seemed like the least obtrusive.

That would help, but not in the cases that cause the most grief - for
example when the column has been aliased in the original query - that
should override the label of course, but then we still need to parse the
SQL at the client to figure out what's going on.
Regards, Dave.