Re: Adjust error message for CREATE STATISTICS to account for expressions - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Yugo Nagata
Subject Re: Adjust error message for CREATE STATISTICS to account for expressions
Date
Msg-id 20260327134637.957f51dafa2182a717a4cd78@sraoss.co.jp
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: Adjust error message for CREATE STATISTICS to account for expressions  (John Naylor <johncnaylorls@gmail.com>)
List pgsql-hackers
On Fri, 27 Mar 2026 07:45:37 +0700
John Naylor <johncnaylorls@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Mar 27, 2026 at 6:23 AM Michael Paquier <michael@paquier.xyz> wrote:
> > -    errmsg("extended statistics require at least 2 columns")));
> > +    errmsg("extended statistics are not supported on a single column")));
> >
> > Now our documentation also tells that the former message is not the
> > preferred project style (full sentences usually avoided in primary
> > messages):
> > https://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/error-style-guide.html#ERROR-STYLE-GUIDE-GRAMMAR-PUNCTUATION
> 
> My reading of that is that hints/details need to be complete
> sentences, and primary messages don't need to be. If the obvious way
> to write primary message is with a complete sentence, I would say
> that's fine, but I don't have a lot of context here.
> 
> > Perhaps something like "could not create extended statistics" with a
> > hint describing the cause would be better..  Full sentences usually
> > apply to errdetails or errhints.  If we're on it, we could just as
> > well improve the whole thing, I guess?
> 
> I don't feel strongly either way, so in that case I would default to
> not changing to errdetail. Looking elsewhere in this file, however, I
> do see some messages with "cannot do X because ....", and I'd be more
> motivated to turn those "because" phrases into errdetails.

I don't have a strong preference here, so I'm fine with either approach.
I also agree that moving "because ..." into errdetails in some longer
messages makes sense.

Regards,
Yugo Nagata

-- 
Yugo Nagata <nagata@sraoss.co.jp>



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