Re: global temporary tables

Robert,

> (1).  What I *think* it is supposed to mean is that the table is a
> permanent object which is "globally" visible - that is, it's part of
> some non-temp schema like public or $user and it's column definitions
> etc. are visible to all backends - and it's not automatically removed
> on commit, backend exit, etc. - but the *contents* of the table are
> temporary and backend-local, so that each new backend initially sees
> it as empty and can then insert, update, and delete data independently
> of what any other backend does.

While closer to the standard, the above definition is a lot less useful 
than what I believe a lot of people want, which is a table which is 
globally visible, but has no durability; that is, it does not get 
WAL-logged or recovered on restart.  Certainly this latter definition 
would be far more useful to support materialized views.

--                                   -- Josh Berkus                                     PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
                           http://www.pgexperts.com