Re: To Postgres Devs : Wouldn't changing the select limit

Tom Lane wrote:

> Jochem van Dieten <jochemd(at)oli(dot)tudelft(dot)nl> writes:
>
>>I would say the relevant behaviour is neither the one that MySQL
>>historically uses nor the one that PostgreSQL historically uses, but the
>>one that is specified in the relevant standards.
>>
>
> There aren't any: SQL92 and SQL99 have no such feature. (Although I
> notice that they list LIMIT as a word likely to become reserved in
> future versions.)

But according to the list in the PostgreSQL docs OFFSET is not a
reserved word. Is it one of the 'likely to become reserved' words?

> IMHO "LIMIT n OFFSET n" is far more readable than "LIMIT m,n" anyway.
> (Quick: which number is first in the comma version? By what reasoning
> could you deduce that if you'd forgotten?) So I think we should
> deprecate and eventually eliminate the comma version, if we're not
> going to conform to the de facto standard for it.

I agree that LIMIT n OFFSET n is by far the most readable format, and is
therefore the desirable format. But I am not sure about deprecating and
eliminating the other syntax. Above all it should be avoided that it is
now deprecated but is included in the next SQL standard and has to be
added again.

For now, I abstain.

Jochem