tables. You can drop and recreate the tables, add columns, insert
and update values, and severely mess up your system that way.
Normally, one should not change the system catalogs by hand, there
- are always SQL commands to do that. (For example, <command>CREATE
+ are normally SQL commands to do that. (For example, <command>CREATE
DATABASE</command> inserts a row into the
<structname>pg_database</structname> catalog — and actually
creates the database on disk.) There are some exceptions for
- particularly esoteric operations, such as adding index access methods.
+ particularly esoteric operations, but many of those have been made
+ available as SQL commands over time, and so the need for direct manipulation
+ of the system catalogs is ever decreasing.
</para>
<sect1 id="catalogs-overview">