Thread: extended stats objects are the only thing written like "%s"."%s"

commit a4d75c86bf15220df22de0a92c819ecef9db3849
Author: Tomas Vondra <tomas.vondra@postgresql.org>
Date:   Fri Mar 26 23:22:01 2021 +0100

    Extended statistics on expressions

This commit added to psql/describe.c:

+                                       /* statistics object name (qualified with namespace) */
+                                       appendPQExpBuffer(&buf, "\"%s\".\"%s\"",
+                                                                         PQgetvalue(result, i, 2),
+                                                                         PQgetvalue(result, i, 3));

Everywhere else the double quotes are around the whole "schema.object" rather
than both separately: "schema"."object".  The code handling servers before v14
has the same thing, since:

commit bc085205c8a425fcaa54e27c6dcd83101130439b
Author: Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@alvh.no-ip.org>
Date:   Fri May 12 14:59:23 2017 -0300

    Change CREATE STATISTICS syntax

src/bin/psql/describe.c-                                        /* statistics object name (qualified with namespace)
*/
src/bin/psql/describe.c:                                        appendPQExpBuffer(&buf, "\"%s\".\"%s\" (",
src/bin/psql/describe.c-                                                                          PQgetvalue(result, i,
2),
src/bin/psql/describe.c-                                                                          PQgetvalue(result, i,
3));

That seems to have been first added in the patch here, but AFAIT not
specifically discussed.
https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/20170511221330.5akgbsoyx6wm4u34%40alvherre.pgsql

At the time the patch was commited, it was the only place that used
"schema"."object":
$ git show bc085205c8a425fcaa54e27c6dcd83101130439b:src/bin/psql/describe.c |grep '\\"\.\\"'
                                        appendPQExpBuffer(&buf, "\"%s\".\"%s\" (",

And it's still the only place, not just in describe.c, but the entire project.
$ git grep -Fc '\"%s\".\"%s\"' '*.c'
src/bin/psql/describe.c:2

I actually don't like writing it as "a.b" since it doesn't work to copy+paste
that, because that means an object called "a.b" in the default schema.
But I think for consistency it should be done the same here as everywhere else.

I noticed that Peter E recently changed amcheck in the direction of consistency:
| 4279e5bc8c pg_amcheck: Message style and structuring improvements

I propose to change extended stats objects to be shown the same as everywhere
else, with double quotes around the whole %s.%s:
    $ git grep '\\"%s\.%s\\"' '*.c'  |wc -l
    126

This affects 9 lines of output in regression tests.

Note that check constraints and indexes have the same schema as their table, so
\d doesn't show a schema at all, and quotes the name of the object.  That
distinction may be relevant to how stats objects ended up being quoted like
this.

-- 
Justin

Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@alvh.no-ip.org> writes:
> I think using "%s.%s" as is done everywhere else is pretty much
> pointless.  It's not usable as an object identifier, since you have to
> make sure to remove the existing quotes, and unless the names work
> without quotes, you have to add different quotes.  So it looks «nice»
> but it's functionally more work.

I think what we are doing there is following the message style
guideline that says to put double quotes around inserted strings.
In this case schema.object (as a whole) is the inserted string.
People often confuse this with SQL double-quoted identifiers, but it
has nothing whatsoever to do with SQL's rules.  (It's easier to make
sense of this rule in translations where the quote marks are not
ASCII double-quotes ... like your example with «nice».)

In short: Justin is right, this should not be done this way.

            regards, tom lane

On 30.08.21 20:06, Alvaro Herrera wrote:
> On 2021-Aug-28, Tom Lane wrote:
> 
>> I think what we are doing there is following the message style
>> guideline that says to put double quotes around inserted strings.
>> In this case schema.object (as a whole) is the inserted string.
>> People often confuse this with SQL double-quoted identifiers, but it
>> has nothing whatsoever to do with SQL's rules.  (It's easier to make
>> sense of this rule in translations where the quote marks are not
>> ASCII double-quotes ... like your example with «nice».)
>>
>> In short: Justin is right, this should not be done this way.
> 
> I don't agree with the way we're applying the message guidelines here,
> but since this is the only place where we do this, I've changed it to
> the idiomatic way of quoting names.

I agree that the current situation is not satisfactory.  We should think 
about extending the guidelines to cover this.

Note that it's not necessarily enough to say, leave \"%s\".\"%s\" 
untranslated.  For example, this could create inconsistencies with 
analogous messages that don't include a schema qualification.  Also, 
unless we are being careful about escaping double-quoted strings inside 
the substituted strings, it wouldn't be entirely correct either.

A comprehensive approach across the tree would be preferable, perhaps 
with additional APIs to support it.  Also, the question when schema 
qualifications should be printed or not should be answered.