At 12:12 PM 10/10/2003 +0200, you wrote:

>On Fri, 10 Oct 2003, Thomas Steinmaurer wrote:
>
> > You have to specify the role when connecting to the
> > database.
>
>Hm... it looks like you can specify only one role per connection.

Yes. One connection~one user.

>So you can't use roles the way I understood... I thought roles
>were just a 'bunch of permissions' that can be granted to a user.

...to 0 or more users.

>That means a user only 'belongs to' one role at a time and
>has to reconnect to use the rights he/she might have with another role?

Yes.
One user can have many roles (be granted many roles)

One role can be granted to many users.

Each connection involves one user in 0 or 1 role.
i.e. a user can be granted permissions directly, without any role.

>And how do you know which roles the user belongs to before
>you connect to the database? Let's say the admin granted you
>new permissions on a table via a role, but didn't tell you.

You wouldn't know.

>Sorry, but I don't think I got the idea behind roles right.

Maybe, maybe not. What was your idea?

heLen