Re: Package support for Postgres

Tom Lane writes:

> This seems like it will overlap and possibly conflict with the decisions
> you've made for packages.  It also seems possible that a package *is*
> a schema, if schemas are defined that way --- does a package bring
> anything more to the table?

I have been pondering a little about something I called "package",
completely independent of anything previously implemented.  What I would
like to get out of a package is the same thing I get out of package
systems on operating systems, namely that I can remove all the things that
belong to the package with one command.  Typical packages on PostgreSQL
could be the PgAccess admin tables or the ODBC catalog extensions.

One might think that this could also be done with schemas.  I'm thinking
using schemas for this would be analogous to installing one package per
directory.  Now since we don't have to deal with command search paths or
file system mount points there might be nothing wrong with that.

Packages typically also have post-install/uninstall code, as does this
proposed implementation, so that would have to be fit in somewhere.

This is basically where my thinking has stopped... ;-)

Now I'm also confused as to what this package system really represents:
Is it a namespace mechanisms -- but Oracle does have schemas; or is it a
package manager like I had in mind -- for that it does too many things
that don't belong there; or is it a mechanism to set up global variables
-- that already exists and doesn't need "packages".

-- 
Peter Eisentraut   peter_e@gmx.net   http://funkturm.homeip.net/~peter