Re: Dollar in identifiers

> > > In order to lower porting issues, I think it'd be nice to add
> > > that to PostgreSQL as well. It's two more characters in
> > > scan.l and doesn't break the regression test.
> > >
> > > Objections?
> >
> > Yes. We would move from standard C identifiers to $ identifiers. We
> > have had zero requests for this so I see no need to add it.
>
> Standard C? I was talking about *allowing* the dollar
> character in table-, column-, function-names!
>
> And not all requests show up directly on the mailing lists
> any more. We'll see those (compatibility) requeses from
> Toronto as well pretty soon I guess.
>
> The thing is that the dollar isn't mentioned in the
> definition of the <SQL terminal character> (chapter 5.1 of
> SQL3) at all. But all DB vendors seem to treat it at least as
> <SQL language identifier part>.
>
> Could you live with it when we don't allow a name to start
> with a dollar, but allow the dollar inside or at the end of
> the name?

We do currently use $1 for params, so allowing dollar in the middle
seems better. However, I need to see multiple people who need it before
I would say OK. If we go adding things because _one_ person wants it,
we will end up with a mess. Someone is working on an
Oracle-compatibility parser. It would be OK in there.

--
Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
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