Igor Tandetnik wrote: > Bradley Smith wrote: >> Why does a user defined function receive zero arguments when used in >> the following expression? >> >> select userfunc(*) from t; > > Why would you expect otherwise? The only precedent in standard SQL for a > syntax like this is count(*), which doesn't need any arguments.
I expect otherwise because my understanding of SQL is that '*' refers to all columns in the table being queried. My understanding is supported by various references like the following. Section 7.9 of http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~shadow/sql/sql1992.txt Under Syntax Rules 3b: Otherwise, the <select list> "*" is equivalent to a <value expression> sequence in which each <value expression> is a <column reference> that references a column of T and each column of T is referenced exactly once. The columns are ref- erenced in the ascending sequence of their ordinal position within T. I don't know if the above URL is an accurate reference for the SQL 1992 standard, but other SQL references also refer to '*' as meaning "all columns". For example, on the Wikipedia SQL page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL) in the Queries section, it states "The asterisk (*) in the select list indicates that all columns of the books table should be included in the result set." Is my understanding of SQL incorrect? Bradley _______________________________________________ sqlite-users mailing list sqlite-users@sqlite.org http://sqlite.org:8080/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sqlite-users
