postgresql/src/backend/nodes
Tom Lane 9b35ddce93 Partial fix for dropped columns in functions returning composite.
When a view has a function-returning-composite in FROM, and there are
some dropped columns in the underlying composite type, ruleutils.c
printed junk in the column alias list for the reconstructed FROM entry.
Before 9.3, this was prevented by doing get_rte_attribute_is_dropped
tests while printing the column alias list; but that solution is not
currently available to us for reasons I'll explain below.  Instead,
check for empty-string entries in the alias list, which can only exist
if that column position had been dropped at the time the view was made.
(The parser fills in empty strings to preserve the invariant that the
aliases correspond to physical column positions.)

While this is sufficient to handle the case of columns dropped before
the view was made, we have still got issues with columns dropped after
the view was made.  In particular, the view could contain Vars that
explicitly reference such columns!  The dependency machinery really
ought to refuse the column drop attempt in such cases, as it would do
when trying to drop a table column that's explicitly referenced in
views.  However, we currently neglect to store dependencies on columns
of composite types, and fixing that is likely to be too big to be
back-patchable (not to mention that existing views in existing databases
would not have the needed pg_depend entries anyway).  So I'll leave that
for a separate patch.

Pre-9.3, ruleutils would print such Vars normally (with their original
column names) even though it suppressed their entries in the RTE's
column alias list.  This is certainly bogus, since the printed view
definition would fail to reload, but at least it didn't crash.  However,
as of 9.3 the printed column alias list is tightly tied to the names
printed for Vars; so we can't treat columns as dropped for one purpose
and not dropped for the other.  This is why we can't just put back the
get_rte_attribute_is_dropped test: it results in an assertion failure
if the view in fact contains any Vars referencing the dropped column.
Once we've got dependencies preventing such cases, we'll probably want
to do it that way instead of relying on the empty-string test used here.

This fix turned up a very ancient bug in outfuncs/readfuncs, namely
that T_String nodes containing empty strings were not dumped/reloaded
correctly: the node was printed as "<>" which is read as a string
value of <>.  Since (per SQL) we disallow empty-string identifiers,
such nodes don't occur normally, which is why we'd not noticed.
(Such nodes aren't used for literal constants, just identifiers.)

Per report from Marc Schablewski.  Back-patch to 9.3 which is where
the rule printing behavior changed.  The dangling-variable case is
broken all the way back, but that's not what his complaint is about.
2014-07-19 14:28:52 -04:00
..
Makefile Remove cvs keywords from all files. 2010-09-20 22:08:53 +02:00
README Remove useless whitespace at end of lines 2010-11-23 22:34:55 +02:00
bitmapset.c pgindent run for 9.4 2014-05-06 12:12:18 -04:00
copyfuncs.c Implement IMPORT FOREIGN SCHEMA. 2014-07-10 15:01:43 -04:00
equalfuncs.c Implement IMPORT FOREIGN SCHEMA. 2014-07-10 15:01:43 -04:00
list.c Implement UPDATE tab SET (col1,col2,...) = (SELECT ...), ... 2014-06-18 13:22:34 -04:00
makefuncs.c pgindent run for 9.4 2014-05-06 12:12:18 -04:00
nodeFuncs.c Implement UPDATE tab SET (col1,col2,...) = (SELECT ...), ... 2014-06-18 13:22:34 -04:00
nodes.c Update copyright for 2014 2014-01-07 16:05:30 -05:00
outfuncs.c Partial fix for dropped columns in functions returning composite. 2014-07-19 14:28:52 -04:00
params.c pgindent run for 9.4 2014-05-06 12:12:18 -04:00
print.c Update copyright for 2014 2014-01-07 16:05:30 -05:00
read.c pgindent run for 9.4 2014-05-06 12:12:18 -04:00
readfuncs.c Implement UPDATE tab SET (col1,col2,...) = (SELECT ...), ... 2014-06-18 13:22:34 -04:00
tidbitmap.c pgindent run for 9.4 2014-05-06 12:12:18 -04:00
value.c Update copyright for 2014 2014-01-07 16:05:30 -05:00

README

src/backend/nodes/README

Node Structures
===============

Andrew Yu (11/94)

Introduction
------------

The current node structures are plain old C structures. "Inheritance" is
achieved by convention. No additional functions will be generated. Functions
that manipulate node structures reside in this directory.


FILES IN THIS DIRECTORY (src/backend/nodes/)

    General-purpose node manipulation functions:
	copyfuncs.c	- copy a node tree
	equalfuncs.c	- compare two node trees
	outfuncs.c	- convert a node tree to text representation
	readfuncs.c	- convert text representation back to a node tree
	makefuncs.c	- creator functions for some common node types
	nodeFuncs.c	- some other general-purpose manipulation functions

    Specialized manipulation functions:
	bitmapset.c	- Bitmapset support
	list.c		- generic list support
	params.c	- Param support
	tidbitmap.c	- TIDBitmap support
	value.c		- support for Value nodes

FILES IN src/include/nodes/

    Node definitions:
	nodes.h		- define node tags (NodeTag)
	primnodes.h	- primitive nodes
	parsenodes.h	- parse tree nodes
	plannodes.h	- plan tree nodes
	relation.h	- planner internal nodes
	execnodes.h	- executor nodes
	memnodes.h	- memory nodes
	pg_list.h	- generic list


Steps to Add a Node
-------------------

Suppose you wanna define a node Foo:

1. Add a tag (T_Foo) to the enum NodeTag in nodes.h.  (If you insert the
   tag in a way that moves the numbers associated with existing tags,
   you'll need to recompile the whole tree after doing this.  It doesn't
   force initdb though, because the numbers never go to disk.)
2. Add the structure definition to the appropriate include/nodes/???.h file.
   If you intend to inherit from, say a Plan node, put Plan as the first field
   of your struct definition.
3. If you intend to use copyObject, equal, nodeToString or stringToNode,
   add an appropriate function to copyfuncs.c, equalfuncs.c, outfuncs.c
   and readfuncs.c accordingly.  (Except for frequently used nodes, don't
   bother writing a creator function in makefuncs.c)  The header comments
   in those files give general rules for whether you need to add support.
4. Add cases to the functions in nodeFuncs.c as needed.  There are many
   other places you'll probably also need to teach about your new node
   type.  Best bet is to grep for references to one or two similar existing
   node types to find all the places to touch.


Historical Note
---------------

Prior to the current simple C structure definitions, the Node structures
used a pseudo-inheritance system which automatically generated creator and
accessor functions. Since every node inherited from LispValue, the whole thing
was a mess. Here's a little anecdote:

    LispValue definition -- class used to support lisp structures
    in C.  This is here because we did not want to totally rewrite
    planner and executor code which depended on lisp structures when
    we ported postgres V1 from lisp to C. -cim 4/23/90