Thread: sql.sgml

Looking through the documentation source, I came across sql.sgml, a
section that covers relational theory and SQL. It's no longer compiled
with the docs, afaics, and hasn't been since 7.1.

We often get questions regarding this kind of basic information in
#postgresql on irc.freenode.net, and people have commented that such a
reference would be useful. I'd like to be able to point people to such
a reference in the docs (we currently point then to books or other
websites).

Perhaps we should include it in the documentation again? Probably needs
a little polishing, but that can be done. Thoughts?

Michael Glaesemann
grzm myrealbox com

Michael Glaesemann <grzm@myrealbox.com> writes:
> Looking through the documentation source, I came across sql.sgml, a
> section that covers relational theory and SQL. It's no longer compiled
> with the docs, afaics, and hasn't been since 7.1.

I am not totally sure why we stopped including that, but I seem to
recall that we couldn't get all the mathematical notation to convert
to DocBook nicely.  I also misdoubt that the math wouldn't scare off
the people who need it most.

I agree that a little bit of basic theory might go well as a chapter in
the tutorial ... but whether this is a good starting point is another
question.

            regards, tom lane