Re: Why is there no object create date is the catalogs?

On 05/12/2015 12:51 PM, Melvin Davidson wrote:
>
> Can anyone tell me why there is no "relcreated" column in pg_class to
> track the creation date of an object?

So what date would it track?:

1) The date in the original database?
2) The date the table was restored to another database cluster?
3) The date it was replicated to a standby?
4) The date it went through a DROP TABLE IF EXISTS some_table, CREATE
TABLE some_table cycle?

I could go on. I imagine that most people that want to track that sort
of thing keep their schema definitions under version control and keep
track of the dates there.

>
> It seems to me it would make sense to have one as it would facilitate
> auditing of when objects are created. In addition, it would also
> facilitate the dropping of objects that have exceeded a certain age.

Now, that just scares me:)

That is often handled through partitioning:
www.postgresql.org/docs/9.4/static/ddl-partitioning.html

Otherwise I am not sure how an object being past a certain date equates
to dropping it?


>
> EG: SELECT 'DELETE TABLE ' || relname || ';'
>        FROM pg_class
>       WHERE relkind = 'r'
>         AND relcreated > current_timestamp - INTERVAL ' 1 year';
>
> Adding that column should be relatively easy and would not break
> backwards compatiblity with previous versions.
> --
> *Melvin Davidson*


--
Adrian Klaver
adrian.klaver@aklaver.com