Disallow changing an inherited column's type if not all parents changed.

If a table inherits from multiple unrelated parents, we must disallow
changing the type of a column inherited from multiple such parents, else
it would be out of step with the other parents.  However, it's possible
for the column to ultimately be inherited from just one common ancestor,
in which case a change starting from that ancestor should still be
allowed.  (I would not be excited about preserving that option, were
it not that we have regression test cases exercising it already ...)

It's slightly annoying that this patch looks different from the logic
with the same end goal in renameatt(), and more annoying that it
requires an extra syscache lookup to make the test.  However, the
recursion logic is quite different in the two functions, and a
back-patched bug fix is no place to be trying to unify them.

Per report from Manuel Rigger.  Back-patch to 9.5.  The bug exists in
9.4 too (and doubtless much further back); but the way the recursion
is done in 9.4 is a good bit different, so that substantial refactoring
would be needed to fix it in 9.4.  I'm disinclined to do that, or risk
introducing new bugs, for a bug that has escaped notice for this long.

Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/CA+u7OA4qogDv9rz1HAb-ADxttXYPqQdUdPY_yd4kCzywNxRQXA@mail.gmail.com

diff --git a/src/backend/commands/tablecmds.c b/src/backend/commands/tablecmds.c
index bc60d0d261368756e74c26a17e0219f0ca54114a..d0f2f7c8eb909b76eb0f092003ccc76c79b2139e 100644 (file)
--- a/src/backend/commands/tablecmds.c
+++ b/src/backend/commands/tablecmds.c
@@ -7967,7 +7967,11 @@ ATPrepAlterColumnType(List **wqueue,
                                 errmsg("cannot alter system column \"%s\"",
                                                colName)));
 
-       /* Don't alter inherited columns */
+       /*
+        * Don't alter inherited columns.  At outer level, there had better not be
+        * any inherited definition; when recursing, we assume this was checked at
+        * the parent level (see below).
+        */
        if (attTup->attinhcount > 0 && !recursing)
                ereport(ERROR,
                                (errcode(ERRCODE_INVALID_TABLE_DEFINITION),
@@ -8083,20 +8087,26 @@ ATPrepAlterColumnType(List **wqueue,
        if (recurse)
        {
                Oid                     relid = RelationGetRelid(rel);
-               ListCell   *child;
-               List       *children;
+               List       *child_oids,
+                                  *child_numparents;
+               ListCell   *lo,
+                                  *li;
 
-               children = find_all_inheritors(relid, lockmode, NULL);
+               child_oids = find_all_inheritors(relid, lockmode,
+                                                                                &child_numparents);
 
                /*
                 * find_all_inheritors does the recursive search of the inheritance
                 * hierarchy, so all we have to do is process all of the relids in the
                 * list that it returns.
                 */
-               foreach(child, children)
+               forboth(lo, child_oids, li, child_numparents)
                {
-                       Oid                     childrelid = lfirst_oid(child);
+                       Oid                     childrelid = lfirst_oid(lo);
+                       int                     numparents = lfirst_int(li);
                        Relation        childrel;
+                       HeapTuple       childtuple;
+                       Form_pg_attribute childattTup;
 
                        if (childrelid == relid)
                                continue;
@@ -8105,6 +8115,29 @@ ATPrepAlterColumnType(List **wqueue,
                        childrel = relation_open(childrelid, NoLock);
                        CheckTableNotInUse(childrel, "ALTER TABLE");
 
+                       /*
+                        * Verify that the child doesn't have any inherited definitions of
+                        * this column that came from outside this inheritance hierarchy.
+                        * (renameatt makes a similar test, though in a different way
+                        * because of its different recursion mechanism.)
+                        */
+                       childtuple = SearchSysCacheAttName(RelationGetRelid(childrel),
+                                                                                          colName);
+                       if (!HeapTupleIsValid(childtuple))
+                               ereport(ERROR,
+                                               (errcode(ERRCODE_UNDEFINED_COLUMN),
+                                                errmsg("column \"%s\" of relation \"%s\" does not exist",
+                                                               colName, RelationGetRelationName(childrel))));
+                       childattTup = (Form_pg_attribute) GETSTRUCT(childtuple);
+
+                       if (childattTup->attinhcount > numparents)
+                               ereport(ERROR,
+                                               (errcode(ERRCODE_INVALID_TABLE_DEFINITION),
+                                                errmsg("cannot alter inherited column \"%s\" of relation \"%s\"",
+                                                               colName, RelationGetRelationName(childrel))));
+
+                       ReleaseSysCache(childtuple);
+
                        /*
                         * Remap the attribute numbers.  If no USING expression was
                         * specified, there is no need for this step.

diff --git a/src/test/regress/expected/inherit.out b/src/test/regress/expected/inherit.out
index 7f3709af12266da2e9a89fa6dcc55f64f9c6a12e..6baa74d3fb10e32e6fba9cbbb499e35e2d70d7e0 100644 (file)
--- a/src/test/regress/expected/inherit.out
+++ b/src/test/regress/expected/inherit.out
@@ -653,6 +653,16 @@ select * from d;
  32 | one | two | three
 (1 row)
 
+-- The above verified that we can change the type of a multiply-inherited
+-- column; but we should reject that if any definition was inherited from
+-- an unrelated parent.
+create temp table parent1(f1 int, f2 int);
+create temp table parent2(f1 int, f3 bigint);
+create temp table childtab(f4 int) inherits(parent1, parent2);
+NOTICE:  merging multiple inherited definitions of column "f1"
+alter table parent1 alter column f1 type bigint;  -- fail, conflict w/parent2
+ERROR:  cannot alter inherited column "f1" of relation "childtab"
+alter table parent1 alter column f2 type bigint;  -- ok
 -- check that oid column is handled properly during alter table inherit
 create table oid_parent (a int) with oids;
 create table oid_child () inherits (oid_parent);

diff --git a/src/test/regress/sql/inherit.sql b/src/test/regress/sql/inherit.sql
index 1b40ccb21877836cdca94b27534cba68524f0e3d..28f6b34be21af68830d3196a008ab0af2f726fb2 100644 (file)
--- a/src/test/regress/sql/inherit.sql
+++ b/src/test/regress/sql/inherit.sql
@@ -160,6 +160,15 @@ insert into d values('test','one','two','three');
 alter table a alter column aa type integer using bit_length(aa);
 select * from d;
 
+-- The above verified that we can change the type of a multiply-inherited
+-- column; but we should reject that if any definition was inherited from
+-- an unrelated parent.
+create temp table parent1(f1 int, f2 int);
+create temp table parent2(f1 int, f3 bigint);
+create temp table childtab(f4 int) inherits(parent1, parent2);
+alter table parent1 alter column f1 type bigint;  -- fail, conflict w/parent2
+alter table parent1 alter column f2 type bigint;  -- ok
+
 -- check that oid column is handled properly during alter table inherit
 create table oid_parent (a int) with oids;