psql's \h MOVE - Mailing list pgsql-docs

I just noticed that \h MOVE is particularly unhelpful:

    alvherre=# \h move
    Command:     MOVE
    Description: position a cursor
    Syntax:
    MOVE [ direction { FROM | IN } ] cursorname


The problem is that it doesn't specify what "direction" is.  The doc
text tells you to look into FETCH for details, but in \h you have to
guess.

We could fix this by including a note about fetch in the <synopsis>,
so that it'd look like this:

    alvherre=# \h move
    Command:     MOVE
    Description: position a cursor
    Syntax:
    MOVE [ direction [ FROM | IN ] ] cursor_name

    See FETCH for details on direction

This, of course, also appears in the HTML output.

This requires this simple patch:

--- a/doc/src/sgml/ref/move.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/ref/move.sgml
@@ -27,6 +27,8 @@ PostgreSQL documentation
  <refsynopsisdiv>
 <synopsis>
 MOVE [ <replaceable class="PARAMETER">direction</replaceable> [ FROM | IN ] ] <replaceable
class="PARAMETER">cursor_name</replaceable>
+
+<phrase>See <command>FETCH</command> for details on <replaceable class="PARAMETER">direction</replaceable>.</phrase>
 </synopsis>
  </refsynopsisdiv>


Would anybody object to doing things this way?

The alternative I see is to expand the "direction" in the MOVE synopsis,
but it is repetitive and would require more maintenance should we ever
decide to change the possible directions.

--
Álvaro Herrera <alvherre@alvh.no-ip.org>