We consider this supported (though I've got my doubts that it's a
good idea, because tableoid is not immutable). However, several
code paths failed to fill the field in soon enough, causing such
a GENERATED expression to see zero or the wrong value. This
occurred when ALTER TABLE adds a new GENERATED column to a table
with existing rows, and during regular INSERT or UPDATE on a
foreign table with GENERATED columns.
Noted during investigation of a report from Vitaly Ustinov.
Back-patch to v12 where GENERATED came in.
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/CAM_DEiWR2DPT6U4xb-Ehigozzd3n3G37ZB1+867zbsEVtYoJww@mail.gmail.com
When running ALTER TABLE t2 INHERIT t1, we must check that columns in
t2 that correspond to a generated column in t1 are also generated and
have the same generation expression. Otherwise, this would allow
creating setups that a normal CREATE TABLE sequence would not allow.
Discussion: https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/22de27f6-7096-8d96-4619-7b882932ca25@2ndquadrant.com
The current implementation cannot handle this correctly, so just
forbid it for now.
GENERATED clauses must be attached to the column definition and cannot
be added later like DEFAULT, so if a child table has a generation
expression that the parent does not have, the child column will
necessarily be an attlocal column. So to implement ALTER TABLE ONLY /
DROP EXPRESSION, we'd need extra code to update attislocal of the
direct child tables, somewhat similar to how DROP COLUMN does it, so
that the resulting state can be properly dumped and restored.
Discussion: https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/flat/15830.1575468847%40sss.pgh.pa.us
In some corner cases, this could also lead to corrupted values being
included in the tuple.
Users who are concerned that they are affected by this should first
upgrade and then perform a base backup of their database and restore onto
an off-line server. They should then query each table with generated
columns to ensure there are no rows where the generated expression does
not match a newly calculated version of the GENERATED ALWAYS expression.
If no crashes occur and no rows are returned then you're not affected.
Fixes bug #16369.
Reported-by: Cameron Ezell
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/16369-5845a6f1bef59884@postgresql.org
Backpatch-through: 12 (where GENERATED ALWAYS columns were added.)
ALTER TABLE failed if a column referenced in a GENERATED expression
had been added or changed in type earlier in the ALTER command.
That's because the GENERATED expression needs to be evaluated
against the table's updated tuples, but it was being evaluated
against the original tuples. (Fortunately the executor has adequate
cross-checks to notice the mismatch, so we just got an obscure error
message and not anything more dangerous.)
Per report from Andreas Joseph Krogh. Back-patch to v12 where
GENERATED was added.
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/VisenaEmail.200.231b0a41523275d0.16ea7f800c7@tc7-visena
This code was still using the old style of forming a heap tuple rather
than using tuple slots. This would be less efficient if a non-heap
access method was used. And using tuple slots is actually quite a bit
faster when using heap as well.
Also add some test cases for generated columns with null values and
with varlena values. This lack of coverage was discovered while
working on this patch.
Discussion: https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/flat/20190331025744.ugbsyks7czfcoksd%40alap3.anarazel.de
The syntax
GENERATED BY DEFAULT AS (expr)
is not allowed but we have to accept it in the grammar to avoid
shift/reduce conflicts because of the similar syntax for identity
columns. The existing code just ignored this, incorrectly. Add an
explicit error check and a bespoke error message.
Reported-by: Justin Pryzby <pryzby@telsasoft.com>
This is an SQL-standard feature that allows creating columns that are
computed from expressions rather than assigned, similar to a view or
materialized view but on a column basis.
This implements one kind of generated column: stored (computed on
write). Another kind, virtual (computed on read), is planned for the
future, and some room is left for it.
Reviewed-by: Michael Paquier <michael@paquier.xyz>
Reviewed-by: Pavel Stehule <pavel.stehule@gmail.com>
Discussion: https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/flat/b151f851-4019-bdb1-699e-ebab07d2f40a@2ndquadrant.com
