Re: [HACKERS] symbol ':' - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Thomas G. Lockhart
Subject Re: [HACKERS] symbol ':'
Date
Msg-id 351A71CA.C2F20AE3@alumni.caltech.edu
Whole thread Raw
In response to symbol ':'  (Michael Meskes <meskes@topsystem.de>)
Responses Re: [HACKERS] symbol ':'  (Michael Meskes <meskes@topsystem.de>)
List pgsql-hackers
> Where is this symbol used? I see now way to check for correct syntax
> when ":a" can mean something else that the C variable a.

It's an allowed operator symbol assigned to a little-used math
operation. You can disallow it for embedded sql if you need to. Another
possibility though is to disallow it as an operator _unless_ it is
inside parentheses. I did a similar thing in gram.y in the BETWEEN/AND
parsing to allow the boolean "AND" operator to be used on the right side
of BETWEEN/AND. But maybe indicator variables are allowed to show up
inside expressions too, so this wouldn't work...

btw, I've been thinking about changing another operator symbol, ";",
because of the obvious parsing ambiguities with the SQL end of statement
symbol. We could change both ":" and ";" operators for v6.4??

                       - Tom

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