On Wed, Jun 13, 2007 at 08:47:30AM -0400, Alvaro Herrera wrote:
> Magnus Hagander wrote:
>
> > Just to open a whole new can of worms ;-)
> >
> > I read an article a couple of days ago about the "machine readable showplan
> > output" in SQL Server 2005 (basically, it's EXPLAIN output but in XML
> > format). It does make a lot of sense if yourp rimary interface is !=
> > commandline (psql), such as pgadmin or phppgadmin. The idea being that you
> > can stick in *all* the details you want, since you can't possibly clutter
> > up the display. And you stick them in a well-defined XML format (or another
> > format if you happen to hate XML) where the client-side program can easily
> > parse out whatever it needs. It's also future-proof - if you add a new
> > field somewhere, the client program parser won't break.
> >
> > Something worth doing? Not to replace the current explain output, but as a
> > second option (EXPLAIN XML whatever)?
>
> FYI a patch was posted for this some time ago, because a friend of mine
> wanted to help a student to write an EXPLAIN parsing tool.
Didn't see that one. Explain in XML format? Got an URL for it, I can't seem
to find it on -patches.
//Magnus