Add function-based virtual fields.

[Dulmandakh]

PostgreSQL 12 added support for Generated Columns, see ​https://www.postgresql.org/docs/12/ddl-generated-columns.html. And I find it very interesting and useful, for example with SearchVectorField.

I imagine it would be called GeneratedField and accept base_field as ArrayField, then expression to generate a value for the field. For example,

class Album(models.Model):
  ...
  title = models.CharField(max_length=120)
  search = GeneratedField(
    SearchVectorField(),
    F('title')
  )

then generate SQL something like below.

CREATE TABLE album (
    ...
    title char(120),
    search tsvector GENERATED ALWAYS AS title STORED
);

I would like to work on this feature, but don't know how to pass expression and generate migration using the expression.

[Mariusz Felisiak]

We have an accepted ticket #30511 about identity columns on PostgreSQL, and I think we should stay with this. Generated/Function-based virtual columns are a huge topic that would require many changes and have many caveats, e.g. functions must be deterministic. They are feasible also on Oracle. This kind of features require few weeks (even months) of works, a precise plan, and should be preceded by a discussion on DevelopersMailingList and even DEP.

[Mariusz Felisiak]

Tentatively accepted, based on the ​feedback from the mailing list.

[Mariusz Felisiak]

​PR