'literal' for numbers

Robert Haas wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 10:08 AM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
> > Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> >> Which way did we more commonly do it before you applied this patch?
> >
> > We don't have a standard for this, and an undocumented patch applied
> > without any discussion doesn't create one. ?It's hopeless to imagine
> > that you'll ever achieve any uniformity that way. ?It won't last long
> > if you do, since you're outnumbered by committers who won't be following
> > whatever you think the convention is.
> >
> > I'm not even sure why you're trying --- I don't think it even makes
> > sense to try to have a standard about this. ?I can easily imagine that
> > integer constants might read better with <literal> in some contexts
> > and better without in others.
>
> *reads patch more carefully*
>
> Here are my verdicts:
>
> advanced.sgml: good
> array.sgml: good
> backup.sgml: unsure
> catalogs.sgml: bad
> client-auth.sgml: bad
> config.sgml: bad
> func.sgml: bad
> high-availability.sgml: bad
> libpq.sgml: bad
> runtime.sgml: bad
> spi.sgml: unsure
> tsearch2.sgml: good
>
> So I guess I'm back agreeing with you. Basically, it seems like we
> ought to use <literal> if it's being used as a value that the user
> might want to supply (e.g. "if you set this parameter to 0, then no
> statements will be logged). It shouldn't use <literal> if it's just
> being used as a number (e.g. "this query will return all airplanes
> with a height of less than 30,000 feet"). The cases I'm unsure about
> are the ones where we're talking about a return value (e.g. in the
> event of an error, this function will return -1).

Robert, based on your logic, the 'return -1' should not be literal
because no one would type that in. Unless I hear otherwise I will work
on a patch to match the rules you outlined above.

--
Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> http://momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com

+ It's impossible for everything to be true. +