To: Markus Schaber <schabios@logi-track.com>
Cc: pgsql-sql@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: Move table between schemas 
In-reply-to: <20041120114411.28c05fcf@kingfisher.intern.logi-track.com> 
References: <20041116100234.635fcd7e@kingfisher.intern.logi-track.com>
	<20041116110538.GA15247@phlogiston.dyndns.org>
	<20041120114411.28c05fcf@kingfisher.intern.logi-track.com>
Comments: In-reply-to Markus Schaber <schabios@logi-track.com>
	message dated "Sat, 20 Nov 2004 11:44:11 +0100"
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 11:36:54 -0500
Message-ID: <21309.1100968614@sss.pgh.pa.us>
From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>

Markus Schaber <schabios@logi-track.com> writes:
> Andrew Sullivan <ajs@crankycanuck.ca> wrote:
>> CREATE TABLE newschema.newtable AS SELECT * FROM oldschema.oldtable 
>> oughta work.

> - The operation is not atomic, thus there may be inserts and updates
> into the old table that get lost while the "CREATE...SELECT...;DROP
> TABLE...;" runs.

You'd deal with that by taking a lock on the old table.  Any sort of
catalog-munging solution would have to do the same (though admittedly it
wouldn't need to hold the lock as long).

> Is there any (possibly ugly, fiddling with system tables) atomic way to
> move a table between schemas?

Offhand:
	* update table's pg_class.relnamespace field
	* update pg_depend entry that links table to namespace
	* repeat for table's rowtype (pg_type entry)
	* repeat for each index on the table
	* repeat for each constraint on the table

Not sure if that's all the places or not...

			regards, tom lane