Re: Thoughts on "SELECT * EXCLUDING (...) FROM ..."? - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

On Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 4:03 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
> That's just a gut feeling, I've not tried it ... but the proposed
> syntax sure looks a lot like a call to a function named EXCLUDING.

I think what makes it okay is that its new use is only defined to
immediately follow an asterisk in the "target_el" production.  If you
look at gram.y:11578 (from git HEAD), I was thinking this:                       | a_expr
{                                      $$ = makeNode(ResTarget);                                       $$->name = NULL;
                                     $$->indirection = NIL;                                       $$->val = (Node *)$1;
                                     $$->location = @1;                               }
 
+                        | '*' EXCLUDING '(' columnref_list ')'
+                                {
+                                        /** make magic happen */
+                                }                       | '*'                               {
            ColumnRef *n = makeNode(ColumnRef);                                       n->fields =
 
list_make1(makeNode(A_Star));                                       n->location = @1;
                                       $$ = makeNode(ResTarget);                                       $$->name = NULL;
                                     $$->indirection = NIL;                                       $$->val = (Node *)n;
                                    $$->location = @1;                               }
 

And it looks like something similar would be necessary in the
"indirection_el" production, around line 11478.  But that might be
overly simplistic (and wrong).

eric