Re: A typo in syncrep.c - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Robert Haas
Subject Re: A typo in syncrep.c
Date
Msg-id CA+TgmoYb0cJU04zhyu77=M1_bvWiP37kscgAbUcSe6PnmJBuTw@mail.gmail.com
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: A typo in syncrep.c  (Kyotaro HORIGUCHI <horiguchi.kyotaro@lab.ntt.co.jp>)
List pgsql-hackers
On Tue, Dec 22, 2015 at 3:18 AM, Kyotaro HORIGUCHI
<horiguchi.kyotaro@lab.ntt.co.jp> wrote:
> Thank you Robert and sorry for bothering you with a silly question!
>
> I understand what I did clearly thanks to your attentive indication.
>
> At Mon, 21 Dec 2015 07:50:40 -0500, Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> wrote in
<CA+TgmoY_mW8wg1DoT61yE71UwnWmYMfDX=oAD+4yYgPSQEUDHQ@mail.gmail.com>
>> >> >> + * lead the client to believe that the transaction is aborted, which
>> >> No, that's correct the way it is.  What you're proposing wouldn't
>> >> exactly be wrong, but it's a little less clear and direct.
>> >
>> > Hmm. I thought they are equal in meaning and make clearer, but I
>> > understand they have such difference. Thank you for correcting
>> > it.
>>
>> The difference is that if you say "the transaction aborted" you mean
>> that the transaction did something - specifically, it aborted.  If you
>> say that "the transaction is aborted" you are talking about the state
>> in which the transaction ended up, without really saying how it got
>> that way.
>
> What I made here was a mistake of the word class of the
> "transaction" by somehow omitting the "that" in the original
> sentense. It is not the objective case as in the case where the
> "that" is omitted, but the subjective case there. Then the
> "aborted" is not the objective complement but the past tense. The
> "that" had been returned in my mind before I knew it but, after
> all, adding "is" there utterly changes the maning as you pointed
> out.

Actually, you might be surprised to hear that you can omit the word
"that" here without changing the meaning.  I tend to avoid that in
formal writing for clarity but the word isn't technically necessary.

>>  In this case we are talking about whether the client might
>> think that the transaction did something (aborted), not what the
>> client might think about the state we ended up in (aborted), so the
>> current wording seems better to me.
>
> I understand that you're completely right. Sorry for my silly
> mistake.

It's not a silly mistake.  And I do appreciate you taking the time to proofread.

-- 
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company



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