Re: OUTER keyword

On 22.02.2011 16:58, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> Heikki Linnakangas wrote:
>> On 04.10.2010 18:23, Tom Lane wrote:
>>> I wrote:
>>>> Heikki Linnakangas<heikki(dot)linnakangas(at)enterprisedb(dot)com> writes:
>>>>> Why is OUTER a type_func_name_keyword? The grammar doesn't require that,
>>>>> it could as well be unreserved.
>>>
>>>> Hm, you sure? All the JOIN-related keywords used to need to be at least
>>>> that to avoid conflicts, IIRC.
>>
>> Yes. OUTER is just an optional noise word in LEFT/RIGHT OUTER JOIN.
>>
>>> Actually, on reflection, it's possible that only JOIN itself really
>>> needs that treatment (because it can be followed by a left paren).
>>> We might have made the JOIN modifier words the same level for
>>> consistency or something. If we can back off both INNER and OUTER
>>> to unreserved, it might be worth doing. I'd be a little more worried
>>> about reducing LEFT/RIGHT/FULL, even if it works at the moment.
>>
>> No, can't change INNER, that creates conflicts.
>>
>> SELECT * FROM pg_class inner JOIN pg_namespace nsp ON nsp.oid =
>> relnamespace;
>>
>> is ambiguous, "inner" could be either an alias name for pg_class or part
>> of "INNER JOIN".
>>
>> I bumped into the OUTER case because we had a test case in the
>> EnterpriseDB test suite using OUTER as a PL/pgSQL variable name. It used
>> to work, at least in simple cases where you don't try to use "LEFT OUTER
>> JOIN", in 8.4 when PL/pgSQL replaced it with $1 in any SQL statements
>> before passing them to the backend. But not anymore in 9.0.
>
> It this a TODO?

If we want to change OUTER, we should just do it now. If not, I don't
see a TODO here.

--
Heikki Linnakangas
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com