I have a view view_a in my database on which several other views depend (view_b, view_c, etc.)
I need to convert view_a into a table, because I no longer want the information in this relation to be dynamic and I need the capability to edit rows manually.
Can I replace view_a with a table without doing a DROP CASCADE and redefining all views that reference view_a?
Clarification: I want view_b and view_c to continue to reference view_a (now a table). I want to replace a view with a table, not have a table in addition to a view.
I was able to resolve this without tracking down and redefining all objects that depend on view_a, at the expense of adding one level of useless redirection.
-- create a copy of the result of view_a
CREATE TABLE table_a AS SELECT * FROM view_a;
-- redefine view_a to its own result
CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW view_a AS SELECT * FROM table_a;
Related
We're in the process of running a handful of hourly scripts on our Redshift cluster which build summary tables for data consumers. After assembling a staging table, the script then runs a transaction which deletes the existing table and replaces it with the staging table, as such:
BEGIN;
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS public.data_facts;
ALTER TABLE public.data_facts_stage RENAME TO data_facts;
COMMIT;
The problem with this operation is that long-running analysis queries will place an AccessShareLock on public.data_facts, preventing it from being dropped and thrashing our ETL cycle. I'm thinking a better solution would be one which renames the existing table, as such:
ALTER TABLE public.data_facts RENAME TO data_facts_old;
ALTER TABLE public.data_facts_stage RENAME TO data_facts;
DROP TABLE public.data_facts_old;
However, this approach presupposes that 1) public.data_facts exists, and 2) public.data_facts_old does not exist.
Do you know if there's a way to conduct this operation safely in SQL, without relying on application logic? (eg. something like ALTER TABLE IF EXISTS).
I haven't tried it but looking at the documentation of CREATE VIEW it seems that this can be done with late-binding views.
The main idea would be a view public.data_facts that users interact with. Behind the scenes, you can load new data and then swap the view to “point” to the new table.
Bootstrap
-- load data into public.data_facts_v0
CREATE VIEW public.data_facts AS
SELECT * from public.data_facts_v0 WITH NO SCHEMA BINDING;
Update
-- load data into public.data_facts_v1
CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW public.data_facts AS
SELECT * from public.data_facts_v1 WITH NO SCHEMA BINDING;
DROP TABLE public.data_facts_v0;
The WITH NO SCHEMA BINDING means the view will be late-binding. “A late-binding view doesn't check the underlying database objects, such as tables and other views, until the view is queried.” This means the update can even introduce a table with renamed columns or a completely new structure.
Notes:
It might be a good idea to wrap the swap operations into a transaction to make sure we don't drop the previous table if the VIEW swap failed.
You can add a new load time timestamp encode runlength default getdate() column to your target table, and make your ETL do this:
INSERT INTO public.data_facts
SELECT * FROM public.data_facts_staging;
DELETE FROM public.data_facts
WHERE load_time<(select max(load_time) from public.data_facts);
DROP TABLE public.data_facts_staging;
note: public.data_facts_staging should have exactly the same structure as public.data_facts except that the last column of public.data_facts is load_time, so that on insert it will be populated with the current timestamp.
The only implication is that it would require extra disk space for a moment between you insert new rows and delete the old rows, and load_time has to be always the last column. Also you have to vaccum table every time you do this.
Another good thing about this is that if your ETL fails and staging table is empty or there is no staging table you won't lose your data. In the pure SQL scenario of swapping tables with DDL you're not protected from dropping the target table when staging table is missing. In the suggested scenario if no new rows are inserted the delete statement deletes nothing (there are no rows less than max load time), so worst case is just having the old version of data.
p.s. there is a command that instead of insert ... select ... just changes the pointer from staging to target table (alter table ... append from ...) but it requires the same type of lock as alter table I guess, so I don't suggest this
I am adding distkey/sortkey to all my tables in redshift and would like to automate this. I am doing the following:
ALTER TABLE table RENAME TO tmp_table;
CREATE TABLE table
distkey(id)
sortkey(id)
AS
select * from tmp_table;
DROP TABLE tmp_table;
This works great, except the views don't get migrated. When you ALTER TABLE, the existing views would point to the tmp_table. Ideally I want to restore the views to the way before, possibly in the same query transaction or as part of a script.
In your migration procedure:
For each view execute:
select definition from pg_views where viewname = 'my_view';
And store all the results.
Execute for all views:
drop view 'my_view'; // or rename only to have a rollback option
Alter your tables
Execute the create view commands obtained in step 2
Just drop and recreate the views. That could be part of the script.
Views might not form part of a transaction, so some testing might be required.
I have column column with character varying(20) type, i want to increase it to 50
ALTER TABLE table ALTER COLUMN column TYPE character varying(50);
I get an error that view view_name depends on column "column". I wonder how can i alter column without dropping and recreating about 10 depending views?
The answer to your question can be found on this blog
PostgreSQL is very restrictive when it comes to modifying existing
objects. Very often when you try to ALTER TABLE or REPLACE VIEW it
tells you that you cannot do it, because there's another object
(typically a view or materialized view), which depends on the one you
want to modify. It seems that the only solution is to DROP dependent
objects, make desired changes to the target object and then recreate
dropped objects.
It is tedious and cumbersome, because those dependent objects can have
further dependencies, which also may have other dependencies and so
on. I created utility functions which can help in such situations.
The usage is very simple - you just have to call:
select deps_save_and_drop_dependencies(p_schema_name, p_object_name);
You
have to pass two arguments: the name of the schema and the name of the
object in that schema. This object can be a table, a view or a
materialized view. The function will drop all views and materialized
views dependent on p_schema_name.p_object_name and save DDL which
restores them in a helper table.
When you want to restore those dropped objects (for example when you
are done modyfing p_schema_name.p_object_name), you just need to make
another simple call:
select deps_restore_dependencies(p_schema_name,p_object_name);
and the dropped objects will be recreated.
These functions take care about:
dependencies hierarchy
proper order of dropping and creating views/materialized views across hierarchy
restoring comments and grants on views/materialized views
Click here
for a working sqlfiddle example or check this gist for a complete
source code
It's not possible, but a TODO feature. You should create a script that is able to handle such a thing as simple view creations.
Is there any way I can edit the MVIEW query without dropping it in TOAD.I am not sure if we can do it?If not how Can I do it in a way that does not affect the table contents?
Thanks in advance
You can't alter a materialized view query, you have to drop and recreate it.
See: http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B28359_01/server.111/b28286/statements_2001.htm
Use the ALTER MATERIALIZED VIEW statement to modify an existing
materialized view in one or more of the following ways:
To change its storage characteristics
To change its refresh method, mode, or time
To alter its structure so that it is a different type of materialized
view
To enable or disable query rewrite
As pointed out by Jeffre Kemp, you cannot change the query of an existing Materialized View.
However, if you expect that changes will be necessary in the future, you can choose one of these approaches:
use an intermediate VIEW that does all the heavy lifting; your MATERIALIZED VIEW then does a simple SELECT * FROM myView. This allows you to change the query - however, it does not allow you to add / remove columns to/from the MATERIALIZED VIEW
use a pre-built table for your materialized view; this logically separates the TABLE that holds the content from the query that is used to update the content. Now, you can drop the MATERIALIZED VIEW, add/remove columns from your TABLE as needed, and re-create the MATERIALIZED VIEW afterwards
use a synonym for all code that queries the MATERIALIZED VIEW; if necessary, create a backup table using CTAS, point the synonym to this backup table, drop and re-create your MATERIALIZED VIEW, point the synonym back to the MATERIALIZED VIEW, and drop your backup table (that's how we do it)
I have a view, one of he column is timetaken type integer i want to change it as numeric.For this I used below syntax
ALTER VIEW view_timesheets ALTER COLUMN timetaken type numeric;
When I run this I got the exception as
"view_timesheets" is not a table, composite type, or foreign table
Please explain how to alter column type.Thank You
It is not possible. You will have to recreate the view by providing its complete definition. Also note that you cannot even CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW when you change the types of the columns. If you have views that depend on the view that changes you will have to DROP / CREATE them also.
In my company we use the strategy where everything that is recreatable in a database (like views, functions, etc.) is stored in a bunch of large SQL files which we execute everytime anything changes in the underlying table structures, so we don't have to care for dependant views.
The view part in these files is basically like:
DROP VIEW IF EXISTS vw_a CASCADE;
CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW vw_a AS
...;
DROP VIEW IF EXISTS vw_b_depending_on_a CASCADE;
CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW vw_b_depending_on_a AS
...;
Of course the second CASCADE as well as the OR REPLACE seems useless, but they maek it possible to copy&paste changed definitions easily into a running dev database without much thinking.
I have also faced a similar problem while converting the column type of view.
I used the CAST() operator to convert the type from Integer to Varchar(5).
I had a column named age which is of type Integer in my table. So the view query created using that table was also having the type as Integer. So I used the CAST() operator in my view query to change the column type.
CASE
WHEN vhcl_insp_dtls.age = 0 THEN CAST('NEW' AS VARCHAR(5))
ELSE CAST(vhcl_insp_dtls.age AS VARCHAR(5))
END AS age,
So In this way, you can modify your view query without dropping it.