On Fri, 2003-01-10 at 04:13, Radu-Adrian Popescu wrote: > > Robert, my dear fellow... > > How about checking your facts before contradicting anyone ? Shame on you ! > Have you actually tried to do a SELECT* from foo ? Pathetic !
At least you started out all nice and flowery... > Try it out, if that won't work on Oracle, MSSQL, PostgreSql I'll buy > everyone on this list a chase of Crystal. > Robert, even > select*from errors; > works on all three of them ! (Sorry about the colors, pasted from TOAD). <snip> > > There you go. Now go sit in the corner ! :) Would an acceptable defense be that select*fromfoo doesn't work? Bah, off to the corner I go... > Also, as I tried to make it quite clear, the point is not whether Oracle or > mysql allow the > use of $ in operators, but whether you have to write cumbersome syntax to > get things working. And the > answer is definitely _no_. But the point I was trying to make is that maybe the reason the answer is no is that they don't support $ in operators. You'll note that a clause like mytime<now() works. Perhaps it's a quirk on my part that I tend to want to know *why* something works the way it does before I go about changing it. > My point here is that common sense (and the use of $1, $2,... with operator > > is going > come up a lot, opposed to the user-defined operator >$, which takes > precedence when parsing a special > case of the SQL command) should prevail over backwards compat. Loot at C++ > for instance, the standard > broke a lot of C++ apps that were written poorly. > Would you suggest the parser should assume >$1 equals > $1? That seems likely to break a lot of cases where >$ was being used. OTOH, if your saying that support of >$1 is more important than support of >$ 1 that's a different argument. That's what you are saying (afaict) and that's also the path that the developers have taken in trying to resolve the issue. > It seems that - strangely - instead of trying to acknowledge not necessarily > incorrect but awkward behavior, > some people on this list have tried to put me down. I think people were trying to explain to you the reasons for the current behavior, at least that's what I was trying to attempt to do. > What's even more scary is receiving answers like "SQL queries are like bash > commands", > or "SELECTXFROMY is not valid - whitespace matters" (when in fact I was > simply pointing out that > i==3 and i == 3 should be parsed alike), or Robert's claim that SELECT* from > ... is invalid SQL. > yeah, my bad on that one. but your argument was still a non starter because we aren't debating support for > $1 (like in your example), but support for >$1. Actually you should be thanking in me, since while my supposition was wrong, my example helps bolster your case somewhat. :-) > The good news is some people seem to have gotten the point and are doing > something about it - and this > makes me feel like maybe, maybe I've helped the community just a little bit. > After all, we all want to see > postgresql up there where it belongs. > > That being said, I do hope that superficial replies trying to prove me wrong > will stop, as they actually don't help > anyone. > Maybe I need to re-read some of the other posts, but I think your taking this too personally. My email was simply trying to help frame the issue properly, because I saw you making an invalid argument in your own defense. Furthermore you need to realize that when someone makes a claim that a certain feature needs to work in a different fashion, or needs to be added at the expense of another feature, that it is only natural and a good thing that the proposal be given a little scrutiny to make sure it stands up. At this point yours does so in my book, though I still would like to see answered is whether oracle or others support >$ as an operator, or if the sql spec has anything to say on the matter. Robert Treat ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/users-lounge/docs/faq.html