2013/2/10 Dean Rasheed <dean.a.rash...@gmail.com>: > On 9 February 2013 18:30, Pavel Stehule <pavel.steh...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>> There are a new question >>>>> >>>>> what should be result of >>>>> >>>>> format(">>%2$*1$s<<", NULL, "hello") >>>>> >>>>> ??? >>> >>> My first thought is that a NULL width should be treated the same as no >>> width at all (equivalent to width=0), rather than raising an >>> exception. >>> >>>> minor update - fix align NULL for %L >>> >>> You need to do the same for a NULL value with %s, which currently >>> produces an empty string regardless of the width. >> >> have others same opinion? Usually I don't like hide NULLs, but this is >> corner case (and specific function) and I have not strong opinion on >> this issue. >> > > One use case for this might be something like > > SELECT format('%*s', minimum_width, value) FROM some_table; > > Throwing an exception when minimum_width is NULL doesn't seem > particularly useful. Intuitively, it just means that row has no > minimum width, so I think we should allow it. > > I think the case where the value is NULL is much more clear-cut. > format('%s') produces '' (empty string). So format('%3s') should > produce ' '. >
ok - in this case I can accept NULL as "ignore width" > >>> >>> The documentation also needs to be updated. I'm thinking perhaps >>> format() should now have its own separate sub-section in the manual, >>> rather than trying to cram it's docs into a single table row. I can >>> help with the docs if you like. >> >> please, if you can, write it. I am sure, so you do it significantly >> better than me. >> > > Here is my first draft. I've also attached the generated HTML page, > because it's not so easy to read an SGML patch. > nice I have only one point - I am think, so format function should be in table 9-6 - some small text with reference to special section. Regards Pavel > Regards, > Dean -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers