Re: On view updating

From: Laconic2 <laconic2_at_comcast.net>
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 10:04:05 -0400
Message-ID: <sq2dnSYHEIXsftPcRVn-pg@comcast.com>

"Tony Andrews" <andrewst_at_onetel.com> wrote in message news:1095685404.749627.19430_at_h37g2000oda.googlegroups.com...

> My feeling is that views are NOT equivalent to base tables in all
> cases, and therefore it is unsurprising that they can't be used as if
> they were base tables in all cases.
>

You make several good points. With regard to this last point, I think that it goes to the heart of what a "view" is. It's a query, and it's a virtual table. It's not surprising that some queries work for update, and some do not.

Maybe views need more definition... In addition to providing a "SELECT" statement, maybe it should provide "UPDATE", "INSERT", and "DELETE" statements. These statements could work somewhat like triggers, in the sense that they would be activated by circumstances. In some cases, the "UPDATE", "INSERT" and "DELETE" are redundant, because they can be inferred from the SELECT. In other cases, they can't be inferred, and have to be explicit.

I'm just playing around with this idea. Maybe I'll reject it after further consideration. Received on Mon Sep 20 2004 - 09:04:05 CDT