Re: Using ENUM with huge NAMEDATALEN

"David Andersen" <david@andersen.gs> writes:
> I am attempting to alter pg_enum.enumlabel to Text, but I seem to run into a
> strange permission problem with regards to system tables. I am not allowed
> to modify them even if I am a superuser.

ALTER TABLE is hardly gonna be sufficient on a system catalog anyway, as
knowledge of its rowtype is generally hardwired into the C code.  You'd
have to modify src/include/catalog/pg_enum.h and then go around and find
all the references to enumlabel and fix them to know it's text not name.
Fortunately, this being not a widely used catalog, there shouldn't be
too many places to fix.  Right offhand, it looks like the indexing.h
definition of its index and about three places in pg_enum.c would be all
that have to change.

Note that this would be an initdb-forcing change and so you should also
bump the catversion number.

            regards, tom lane