Josh Berkus writes:
> That does bring up a related question: when are we gonna get
DROP
>COLUMN capability? Currently my tables are littered with unused
columns
>because I can't remove them without blowing my referential integrity
and
>views to heck.
Josh:
I've done some work on a solution to allow you to drop and rebuild your
db from scratch relatively painlessly. It enables you to munge portions
of the database, drop columns, undermine RI, clobber views, etc. and
then put the whole thing back together clean, fresh and perfect.
Pg_dump is focused on doing a drop/restore exactly. What is needed is a
way to drop/modify/restore. That's kind of what my tool enables you to
do (without the fear that you're going to lose some subtle detail of the
schema in the process).
It's a management tool that sits in between Postgres and your
application. You store chunks of SQL in a relational format that
describe your schema exactly. Then you can call those bits of SQL on
demand to destroy or build parts of the schema selectively. Because its
relational, you can store dependencies so the program knows which parts
of the DB to rebuild when you clobber something.
Right now, it is a handful of shell scripts and files, but we're using
it with good success at ATI. I have created an outline of how to do it
with a tcl/tk GUI and actually storing the SQL chunks in a Postgres
database.
I want to do some more development on it and then do a GPL release of
it. Problem is, I don't seem to find the time to get it all done. Are
you interested in collaborating on its development? Or do you know
someone who is?
BTW:
In addition to the management tool, I have also developed a complete
library that allows one to build an ERP around Postgres very quickly.
For example, a typical contact manager can be written in about 300-500
lines of code. A much more powerful version can be written in about
twice that much code.
Using the library, we have built a major chunk of our ERP which
includes: product design and specification, inventory management, order
entry, contact management, employee records, AP, payroll, purchasing,
shipping, etc.
Given the right conditions, I'd be willing to GPL this too. Anyone
interested in working on it?