Postgres Pro
Downloads
Home   >   mailing lists

Thread: New pgbench functions are misnamed

New pgbench functions are misnamed

From
Tom Lane
Date:
I noticed that commit 7e137f846 added functions named max() and min()
to pgbench's expression syntax.  Unfortunately, these functions have
zilch to do with what max() and min() do in SQL.  They're actually more
like the greatest() and least() server-side functions.

While I can't imagine that we'd ever want to implement true aggregates
in pgbench expressions, it still seems like this is a recipe for
confusion.  Shouldn't we rename these to greatest() and least()?
        regards, tom lane

Re: New pgbench functions are misnamed

From
Robert Haas
Date:
On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 5:41 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
> I noticed that commit 7e137f846 added functions named max() and min()
> to pgbench's expression syntax.  Unfortunately, these functions have
> zilch to do with what max() and min() do in SQL.  They're actually more
> like the greatest() and least() server-side functions.
>
> While I can't imagine that we'd ever want to implement true aggregates
> in pgbench expressions, it still seems like this is a recipe for
> confusion.  Shouldn't we rename these to greatest() and least()?

Yeah, that's probably a good idea.

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

Re: New pgbench functions are misnamed

From
Fabien COELHO
Date:
> I noticed that commit 7e137f846 added functions named max() and min()
> to pgbench's expression syntax.  Unfortunately, these functions have
> zilch to do with what max() and min() do in SQL.  They're actually more
> like the greatest() and least() server-side functions.

Yep.

> While I can't imagine that we'd ever want to implement true aggregates 
> in pgbench expressions, it still seems like this is a recipe for 
> confusion.  Shouldn't we rename these to greatest() and least()?

My 0,02€: I like the simplicity of min/max names and I think that anyone 
would manage to deal with this level of confusion in a pgbench script, so 
I would not bother.

But if it is to be changed, best do it now!

-- 
Fabien.

Re: New pgbench functions are misnamed

From
Tom Lane
Date:
Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
> On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 5:41 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
>> I noticed that commit 7e137f846 added functions named max() and min()
>> to pgbench's expression syntax.  Unfortunately, these functions have
>> zilch to do with what max() and min() do in SQL.  They're actually more
>> like the greatest() and least() server-side functions.
>> 
>> While I can't imagine that we'd ever want to implement true aggregates
>> in pgbench expressions, it still seems like this is a recipe for
>> confusion.  Shouldn't we rename these to greatest() and least()?

> Yeah, that's probably a good idea.

The vote seems to be 2 to 1 in favor, so I'll go do this.
        regards, tom lane