Re: placeholder syntax - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Tom Lane
Subject Re: placeholder syntax
Date
Msg-id 2051.1087828351@sss.pgh.pa.us
Whole thread Raw
In response to placeholder syntax  (Abhijit Menon-Sen <ams@wiw.org>)
Responses Re: placeholder syntax
List pgsql-hackers
Abhijit Menon-Sen <ams@wiw.org> writes:
> Should Postgres accept ? as a placeholder?

We think it's an operator character:

regression=# select 1 ? 4;
ERROR:  operator does not exist: integer ? integer

I count eighteen standard operators that would be broken if we changed
'?' to mean a parameter.

I am also pretty unclear on why '?' is a good notation for parameters,
seeing that it is very hard for either the user or the machine to tell
which is which when there are multiple parameters.

In short, I think this notation sucks and I don't want to emulate it.

We do have the :foo notation in ecpg, which may be your closest parallel
for handling Oracle-workalike code anyway.
        regards, tom lane


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