Message-ID: <468A8C08.1060803@g2switchworks.com>
Date: Tue, 03 Jul 2007 12:48:56 -0500
From: Scott Marlowe <smarlowe@g2switchworks.com>
User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.4 (X11/20060516)
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Mark Fenbers <Mark.Fenbers@noaa.gov>
CC: pgsql-sql@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: Informix Schema -> PostgreSQL ?
References: <468A77B6.2070706@noaa.gov>
In-Reply-To: <468A77B6.2070706@noaa.gov>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Mark Fenbers wrote:
> I am an ex-Informix convert.  Informix used the term "schema" to refer 
> to the SQL-format definition of how a table or view was created.  
> E.g., CREATE TABLE john ( char(8) lid, ...);  Some views we have are 
> quite complex (and not created by me) and I want to create a similar 
> one in Pg.  If I could see the view in this SQL format, then I could 
> use SQL to create another one using this as a template.
>
> pgadmin3 can show this definition in SQL format, but I can't use 
> pgadmin3 on a certain box.  How can I show information in Pg (psql) 
> the way that Informix would show a schema?
>
> BTW, what does PostgreSQL call this (what Informix calls a schema)??
Oddly enough, it's the same thing.  There's schema, the object, which 
holds related objects inside it.  databases contain schemas which 
contain tables, indexes, etc...

Then there's schema, as a definition of how something it put together.  
Confusing, I know.

The easiest way to view the sql format definition of a view is the use 
the pg_views view...

select * from pg_views where viewname='nameofview';

You can get the same thing with pg_dump:

pg_dump dbname -s -t tableorindexname