Re: [HACKERS] Explain plan output

"Ansley, Michael" <Michael.Ansley@intec.co.za> writes:
> Anyway, the point of this mail is to say that I have altered the explain
> code slightly, so that it dumps the results of the explain into a
> table.

What do you mean by that, exactly?  You can't expect to fit long explain
outputs into a single table row, so I suppose it's one row per line.
How are the rows identified?  What's the expected declaration of the
table?

> I find that a lot more convenient

It strikes me as a lot less convenient for the sorts of things I use
explain for.  But I wouldn't object if it were an optional feature:
EXPLAIN [ VERBOSE ] [ INTO <table> ] <query>

which would also solve your problem of figuring out which table to write
to.

> e) The plan id is output using elog.  How would I ensure that this gets back
> to any arbitrary client.  If I understand right, elogs don't go to ODBC, and
> possibly other, clients.

What's a "plan id", and is it actually necessary?
        regards, tom lane