I believe the section you are reading refers to the BEGIN keyword in the procedural language plpgsql, not the SQL 'BEGIN' command. The issue stems from confusing two distinct languages both of which, along with several more procedural languages, are documented in the same manual.
__________________________________________________________________________________ Mike Blackwell | Technical Analyst, Distribution Services/Rollout Management | RR Donnelley 1750 Wallace Ave | St Charles, IL 60174-3401 Office: 630.313.7818 Mike.Blackwell@rrd.com http://www.rrdonnelley.com
I am reading the following in the documentation: "Tip: A common mistake is to write a semicolon immediately after BEGIN. This is incorrect and will result in a syntax error."
So, "common mistake" means semicolons after BEGIN seem consistent to many people - it seems consistent to me as well. If PostgreSql allowed them, we would have one less rule to memorize, shorter documentation, less mistakes and so on. In other words, without this limitation PostgreSql would be slightly more useful, right?
What am I missing? Why do we need this rule? How is it making PostgreSql better?
