Menu tree storage, config and cache uses the same pattern: execute a query, catch an exception, try to create the table, if succeeded rerun the query. This is already wasteful and there's already demand #2338747: Move {router} out of system.install and create the table lazy → for it elsewhere.
schemaProvider interface with a single getSchema method that takes an optional table name argument.isTableMissingException method that checks an exception whether it means table is missing. Sucks PDO doesn't do that.$options = ['schema_provider' => $this] which is then used in order to create the table on the fly.isTableMissingException method (this can be disabled by an option). For selects it returns new FakeStatement([]);. insert and merge passes in a table name. For insert/update/merge ... it will create the passed in tables.Note: This concept has limits, so for example tables which are used in entity queries/views, so ones which contain joins, are not supported yet.
$options = ['schema_provider' => $this]/li>
This is an API addition: schema gets ensureTableExists and query gets executeEnsuringTable -- so it should be good to go.
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Tried to Re-roll patch from #120 📌 Move the on-demand-table creation into the database API Needs work to11. Branch.