Re: Support UPDATE table SET(*)=...

>>>>> "Tom" == Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> writes:
>> One example that comes up occasionally (and that I've had to do>> myself more than once) is this: given a table
"foo"and another with>> identical schema "reference_foo", apply appropriate inserts, updates>> and deletes to table
"foo"to make the content of the two tables>> identical. This can be done these days with wCTEs:
 
>> with>>   t_diff as (select o.id as o_id, n.id as n_id, o, n>>                from foo o full outer join
reference_foon on (o.id=n.id)>>               where (o.*) is distinct from (n.*)),>>   ins as (insert into foo select
(n).*from t_diff where o_id is null),>>   del as (delete from foo>>            where id in (select o_id from t_diff
wheren_id is null)),>>   upd as (update foo>>              set (col1,col2,...) = ((n).col1,(n).col2,...)  -- XXX>>
      from t_diff>>            where foo.id = n_id and o_id = n_id)>> select count(*) filter (where o_id is null) as
num_ins,>>       count(*) filter (where o_id = n_id) as num_upd,>>        count(*) filter (where n_id is null) as
num_del>>       from t_diff;
 
Tom> While I agree that the UPDATE part of that desperately needsTom> improvement, I don't agree that the INSERT part
isentirely fine.Tom> You're still relying on a parse-time expansion of the (n).*Tom> notation, which is inefficient
 

Not in my experience a huge deal given what else is going on...
Tom> and not at all robust against schema changes (the same problem asTom> with the patch's approach to UPDATE).

Now this I think is wrong; I think it's just as robust against schema
changes as using the composite value directly would be. Consider the
case where foo and reference_foo match with the exception of dropped
columns; the code as it is should just work, while a variant that used
the composite values would have to explicitly deal with that.

(When I've used this kind of operation in practice, reference_foo has
just been created using CREATE TEMP TABLE reference_foo (LIKE foo); and
then populated via COPY from an external data source. Even if
reference_foo were a non-temp table, the logic of the situation requires
it to have the same schema as foo as far as SQL statements are
concerned.)
Tom> So if we're taking this as a motivating example, I'd want to see aTom> fix that allows both INSERT and UPDATE
directlyfrom a compositeTom> value of proper rowtype, without any expansion to individualTom> columns at all.
 

I would argue that this is a case of the perfect being the enemy of the
good.
Tom> Perhaps we could adopt some syntax likeTom>     INSERT INTO table (*) values-or-selectTom> to represent the case
thatthe values-or-select delivers a singleTom> composite column of the appropriate type.
 

We could, but I think in all practical cases it'll be nothing more than
a small performance optimization rather than something that really
benefits people in terms of enhanced functionality.
>> Other examples arise from things one might want to do in plpgsql; for>> example to update a record from an hstore or
jsonvalue, one can use>> [json_]populate_record to construct a record variable, but then it's>> back to naming all the
columnsin order to actually perform the update>> statement.
 
Tom> Sure, but the patch as given didn't work very well for thatTom> either,

Partly that's a limitation resulting from how much can be done with the
existing SET (...) = syntax and implementation without ripping it all
out and starting over. An incremental improvement seemed to be a more
readily achievable goal.

In practice it would indeed probably look like:
 declare   new_id integer;   new_values hstore; begin   /* do stuff */   update foo      set (*) = (select * from
populate_record(foo,new_values))    where foo.id = new_id;
 

A agree that it would be nicer to do
   update foo      set (*) = populate_record(foo, new_values)    where foo.id = new_id;

but that would be a substantially larger project. The alternative of
      set * = populate_record(foo, new_values)

is less satisfactory since it introduces inconsistencies with the case
where you _do_ want to specify explicit columns, unless you also allow
      set (a,b) = row_value

which is required by the spec for T641 but which we don't currently
have.

-- 
Andrew (irc:RhodiumToad)