> It could be useful to have a command that returns the table definition
> (like pg_dump -st) from within the query interface. This could be
> particularly useful if one doesn't have access to or prefers not to
> manipulate results coming from a shell. If I have an API from which to
> query the database, it seems silly to have to spawn a shell and run a
> command to query the very same database.
Yes. That functionality would be really appreciated by myself and a few
pgsql-users I know.
> (I'm not exactly familiar with how pg_dump manipulates or extracts
> that data, so this could be a very, very stupid question. If so,
> please forgive me.)
Me neither, but I think one of the problems is, that during upgrade you
are supposed to use pg_dump from the new version on the existing
database instance.
The server could most probably only generate its own format (not the
new) which might be a problem.
Perhaps it could be implemented by stored function (autoinstalled and
available in contrib or perhaps installed by a psql on first run) in a
namespace like pg_dump_84 (i.e. tagged with server version). If you want
to upgrade you could then install the new set of functions..
Psql could then be a thin wrapper (which calls the needed functions).
/Svenne