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Thread: support for ltree

support for ltree

From
Michael Shapiro
Date:
I am wondering if the contributed module <ltree> will always be part of Postgres? Do contributed modules ever get absorbed into Postgres itself?  

The reason I am asking is that, although ltree seems to have been a contributed module since at least 8.3, how can one know if it will always be part of subsequent versions of Postgres?

Are there any plans to make <ltree> a built-in datatype, like <json>, o<xml>, or the various Geometric Types (eg, <polygon>)?

Michael Shapiro
Senior Systems Engineer
National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)

Re: support for ltree

From
Melvin Davidson
Date:
Geometric Data Types have been in PostgreSQL for quite a while.
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.2/interactive/datatype-geometric.html

JSON have been in PostgreSQL since 9.2 and it's functionality increases with each new version.
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.2/interactive/datatype-json.html

AFAIK, Most of the contributed modules have been changed into EXTENSIONs
Check the /share/contrib  and /share/extension  directories under the PostgreSQL main directory to see what is available for your version.

On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 8:22 AM, Michael Shapiro <mshapiro51@gmail.com> wrote:
I am wondering if the contributed module <ltree> will always be part of Postgres? Do contributed modules ever get absorbed into Postgres itself?  

The reason I am asking is that, although ltree seems to have been a contributed module since at least 8.3, how can one know if it will always be part of subsequent versions of Postgres?

Are there any plans to make <ltree> a built-in datatype, like <json>, o<xml>, or the various Geometric Types (eg, <polygon>)?

Michael Shapiro
Senior Systems Engineer
National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)



--
Melvin Davidson
I reserve the right to fantasize.  Whether or not you
wish to share my fantasy is entirely up to you.

Re: support for ltree

From
Michael Shapiro
Date:
Hi Melvin,

Thanks for this response. It still leave my question unanswered. I should rephrase it -- will <ltree> become a native datatype in Postgres (as opposed to remaining an extension). Are there any plans to make <ltree> a native datatype?

Michael

On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 7:58 AM, Melvin Davidson <melvin6925@gmail.com> wrote:
Geometric Data Types have been in PostgreSQL for quite a while.
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.2/interactive/datatype-geometric.html

JSON have been in PostgreSQL since 9.2 and it's functionality increases with each new version.
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.2/interactive/datatype-json.html

AFAIK, Most of the contributed modules have been changed into EXTENSIONs
Check the /share/contrib  and /share/extension  directories under the PostgreSQL main directory to see what is available for your version.

On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 8:22 AM, Michael Shapiro <mshapiro51@gmail.com> wrote:
I am wondering if the contributed module <ltree> will always be part of Postgres? Do contributed modules ever get absorbed into Postgres itself?  

The reason I am asking is that, although ltree seems to have been a contributed module since at least 8.3, how can one know if it will always be part of subsequent versions of Postgres?

Are there any plans to make <ltree> a built-in datatype, like <json>, o<xml>, or the various Geometric Types (eg, <polygon>)?

Michael Shapiro
Senior Systems Engineer
National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)



--
Melvin Davidson
I reserve the right to fantasize.  Whether or not you
wish to share my fantasy is entirely up to you.

Re: support for ltree

From
"David G. Johnston"
Date:
On Friday, June 12, 2015, Michael Shapiro <mshapiro51@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Melvin,

Thanks for this response. It still leave my question unanswered. I should rephrase it -- will <ltree> become a native datatype in Postgres (as opposed to remaining an extension). Are there any plans to make <ltree> a native datatype? 

Instead of asking people to guess about the future why don't you explain what motivated you to ask the question in the first place?

David J. 

Re: support for ltree

From
"David G. Johnston"
Date:
On Friday, June 12, 2015, Michael Shapiro <mshapiro51@gmail.com> wrote:
The reason I am asking is that, although ltree seems to have been a contributed module since at least 8.3, how can one know if it will always be part of subsequent versions of Postgres?

Whether contrib, core, or an external extension you like will always have ltree available to you.

It is also open source so you could update and compile it yourself in a worse case scenario.

The difference between core and contrib is the subject of many discussions but anything there now is almost guaranteed to be in one or the other indefinitely.

David J.

Re: support for ltree

From
Tom Lane
Date:
Michael Shapiro <mshapiro51@gmail.com> writes:
> Thanks for this response. It still leave my question unanswered. I should
> rephrase it -- will <ltree> become a native datatype in Postgres (as
> opposed to remaining an extension). Are there any plans to make <ltree> a
> native datatype?

No.  That is not the same as it being unsupported.  Postgres is built
around the concept of being extensible, and one important aspect of that
is having some "standard" extensions as test cases.  ltree seems to fit
that category quite well, in that it's useful for some people but not so
widely used as to need to be in core.

(Even if there were a credible argument for putting ltree in core, I doubt
it would win out over backwards-compatibility concerns.  We've found in
the past that moving things into core is not exactly transparent.)

            regards, tom lane