Gregory Stark <stark@enterprisedb.com> writes:
> Once you have an XML plan what can you do with it? All you can do is parse it
> into constituent bits and display it. You cant do any sort of comparison
> between plans, aggregate results, search for plans matching constraints, etc.
Sure you can, just not in SQL ;-)
Given the amount of trouble we'd have to go to to put the data into a
pure SQL format, I don't think that's exactly an ideal answer either.
I'm for making the raw EXPLAIN output be in a simple and robust format,
which people can then postprocess however they want --- including
forcing it into SQL if that's what they want. But just because we're a
SQL database doesn't mean we should think SQL is the best answer to
every problem.
While I'm surely not an XML fanboy, it looks better suited to this
problem than a pure relational representation would be.
regards, tom lane