On Wed, Feb 22, 2017 at 8:08 AM, Tom Lane <t...@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
> Bernd Helmle <maili...@oopsware.de> writes: > >> From time to time, especially during migration projects from Oracle to > > PostgreSQL, i'm faced with people questioning why the alias in the FROM > > clause for subqueries in PostgreSQL is mandatory. The default answer > > here is, the SQL standard requires it. > > Indeed. When I wrote the comment you're referring to, quite a few years > ago now, I thought that popular demand might force us to allow omitted > aliases. But the demand never materialized. At this point it seems > clear to me that there isn't really good reason to exceed the spec here. > It just encourages people to write unportable SQL code. > I'll contribute to the popular demand aspect but given that the error is good and the fix is very simple its not exactly a strong desire. My code is already unportable since I choose to use "::" for casting - and I'm sure quite a few other PostgreSQL-specific things - so the portability aspect to the argument is already thin for me and moreso given other DBMSes already relax the requirement. David J.
