From: Michael Riess <mlriess@gmx.de>
Subject: Re: 15,000 tables
Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2005 17:28:44 +0100
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To: pgsql-performance@postgresql.org

Hi Tom,

> Michael Riess <mlriess@gmx.de> writes:
>> (We NEED that many tables, please don't recommend to reduce them)
> 
> No, you don't.  Add an additional key column to fold together different
> tables of the same structure.  This will be much more efficient than
> managing that key at the filesystem level, which is what you're
> effectively doing now.

Been there, done that. (see below)

> 
> (If you really have 15000 distinct rowtypes, I'd like to know what
> your database design is...)

Sorry, I should have included that info in the initial post. You're 
right in that most of these tables have a similar structure. But they 
are independent and can be customized by the users.

Think of it this way: On the server there are 500 applications, and each 
has 30 tables. One of these might be a table which contains the products 
of a webshop, another contains news items which are displayed on the 
website etc. etc..

The problem is that the customers can freely change the tables ... add 
columns, remove columns, change column types etc.. So I cannot use 
system wide tables with a key column.


Mike