6.5.2 BUG: Rolling back after dropping a table causes dangling relationships.

This will be fixed in 6.6, due out in a few months.

Your name : Lincoln Yeoh
Your email address : lylyeoh@mecomb.com

System Configuration
---------------------
Architecture (example: Intel Pentium) : Intel Pentium II (64MB)
Operating System (example: Linux 2.0.26 ELF) : Redhat 6.0 Linux
2.2.5-15 ELF
PostgreSQL version (example: PostgreSQL-6.5.1): PostgreSQL-6.5.2
Compiler used (example: gcc 2.8.0) : egcs-2.91.66

Please enter a FULL description of your problem:
------------------------------------------------
If you drop a table in a transaction and do a rollback, the table is "half
dropped", the table is gone but you cannot create a new table with the same
name, nor can you drop it again.

You have to manually go to the data/base/database directory and recreate
any necessary referenced files (just empty files will do). Only then can
you drop the table properly.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Please describe a way to repeat the problem. Please try to provide a
concise reproducible example, if at all possible:
----------------------------------------------------------------------

CREATE TABLE SESSION (
SES_ID SERIAL,
SES_UID INT4,
SES_STR CHAR(40),
SES_STAT CHAR,
SES_SDATE DATETIME,
SES_EDATE DATETIME,
SES_ADATE DATETIME
);
begin transaction;
drop table session;
rollback;
(if you do commit it's ok)

select * from session;

ERROR: mdopen: couldn't open session: No such file or directory

create table session (a int4);
ERROR: Relation 'session' already exists
(Uh Oh)
lylyeoh=> drop table session;

ERROR: mdopen: couldn't open session: No such file or directory
(Oh no!)

So create empty tablefile in data/base/lylyeoh directory
[postgres bash shell]$ > session

lylyeoh=> drop table session;
ERROR: mdopen: couldn't open session_ses_id_key: No such file or directory

So create empty indexfile in data/base/lylyeoh directory
[postgres bash shell]$ > session_ses_id_key

lylyeoh=> drop table session;

DROP
(YEEHA! DIEDIEDIE!)
lylyeoh=> create table session (a int4);
CREATE

Phew :).

Not a big deal since I won't be doing drop tables in transactions. I only
encountered this after just installing 6.5.2 and doing some tests on
PostgreSQL transaction handling.

If you know how this problem might be fixed, list the solution below:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Only know how to fix the damage. Not the bug. I suspect the rollback
doesn't check that there's a "drop table" and does something that it
shouldn't for that case.

Are there other similar problems for drop sequence/index and stuff?

Cheerio,

Link.

************

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