Re: Named arguments in function calls

Tom Lane wrote:

>Dennis Bjorklund <db(at)zigo(dot)dhs(dot)org> writes:
>
>
>>I kind of like AS also now after thinking about it. The only reason for =>
>>is that oracle used it, nothing else.
>>
>>
>
>Peter Eisentraut pointed out to me that I'd missed a conflicting feature
>in SQL99: that spec uses "value AS type" in some function-call contexts.
>It's essentially a cast without the CAST() decoration. (See
><SQL argument list> and <generalized expression>.)
>
>I'm not sure if we'll ever get around to implementing SQL99's ideas
>about user-defined types; they seem pretty bizarre. But it is probably
>unwise to select a directly conflicting syntax for parameter names.
>
>So, back to the drawing board ... what else can we use?
>
>

I actually rather like the Oracle syntax. As an old Ada programmer
(there are damn few of us left) I feel right at home with it ;-). Perl
programmers should feel quite comfortable with it too (just think of the
arguments as a hash).

OTOH I understand the objections, but they don't strike me as
necessarily conclusive.

cheers

andrew