The view column_privileges identifies all
privileges granted on columns to the current user or by the current
user. There is one row for each combination of column, grantor,
and grantee. Privileges granted to groups are identified in the
view role_column_grants.
In PostgreSQL, you can only grant
privileges on entire tables, not individual columns. Therefore,
this view contains the same information as
table_privileges, just represented through one
row for each column in each appropriate table, but it only covers
privilege types where column granularity is possible:
SELECT, INSERT,
UPDATE, REFERENCES. If you
want to make your applications fit for possible future
developments, it is generally the right choice to use this view
instead of table_privileges if one of those
privilege types is concerned.
Table 31-5. column_privileges Columns
| Name | Data Type | Description |
|---|
| grantor | sql_identifier | Name of the user that granted the privilege |
| grantee | sql_identifier | Name of the user or group that the privilege was granted to |
| table_catalog | sql_identifier | Name of the database that contains the table that contains the column (always the current database) |
| table_schema | sql_identifier | Name of the schema that contains the table that contains the column |
| table_name | sql_identifier | Name of the table that contains the column |
| column_name | sql_identifier | Name of the column |
| privilege_type | character_data | Type of the privilege: SELECT,
INSERT, UPDATE, or
REFERENCES
|
| is_grantable | character_data | YES if the privilege is grantable, NO if not |
Note that the column grantee makes no
distinction between users and groups. If you have users and groups
with the same name, there is unfortunately no way to distinguish
them. A future version of PostgreSQL
will possibly prohibit having users and groups with the same name.
