Re: Revision Control in pgAdmin/PostgreSQL

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Douglas Bates [mailto:bates@stat.wisc.edu]
> Sent: 26 December 2001 19:33
> To: pgadmin-support@postgresql.org
> Cc: Alan Zaslavsky; Saikat DebRoy; Deepayan Sarkar
> Subject: [pgadmin-support] Revision Control in pgAdmin/PostgreSQL
>
>
> I use pgadmin 1.1.72 to connect to a PostgreSQL 7.1.3 server
> running on a Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 (testing) machine.
>
> After connecting to the server and selecting a database, one
> of the properties that is displayed is whether the database
> has Revision Control.  On my server that is always "No".
>
> The only place I have ever seen Revision Control for
> PostgreSQL mentioned is in pgAdmin.  In 1.1.72 there are even
> icons on the icon bar 1.1.72 that deal specifically with
> revision control.  However, I have searched the documentation
> for pgAdmin and for PostgreSQL and can find no mention of
> Revision Control or how I would enable it.
>
> Can anyone suggest where I could read about this?  I am very
> interested in this capability.

Hi Douglas,

Currently there is no documentation for pgAdmin's revision control I'm
afraid. But...

The system is specific to pgAdmin, it is not part of PostgreSQL itself, of
pgAccess, phpPgAdmin or any other interface. It can be enabled in pgAdmin by
viewing the properties of a database, and checking the Revision Control
checkbox. When you then click OK, pgAdmin will create a revision control
table (pgadmin_rclog - normally hidden) in the database, and will scan all
the objects in the database and log the SQL that you normally see in the
definition pane in the main window.

From that point on, any changes made to an object using pgAdmin will case
the new definition to be logged. Changes made outside pgAdmin *will not be
logged* but with show up as out of date when selected in the treeview (look
for a red icon in the listview to the right). These changes can be manually
committed by right-clicking the object and selecting the relevant option.

The History button on the button bar (or option on the context menu) will
allow you to view the revision history for the current object. You can
rollback to any previous version of an object, but beware that table data
isn't logged and will be lost, and dependant objects such as triggers and
indexes will also be lost - these should be recoverable using the Gravyard
though...

The Graveyard button allows you to browse the latest versions of all objects
that are in revision control, but *not* in the current database - in other
words, anything that has been deleted. You can restore these objects as you
wish - this will also restore their revision history if they have one.

Be warned: The Revision Control system is *not* a backup system, and may
have yet-to-be-found bugs. Make sure you take and keep regular backups in
case something goes wrong!

Regards, Dave.