Re: string function - "format" function proposal

2010/10/18, Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com>:
> On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 7:37 AM, Itagaki Takahiro
> <itagaki(dot)takahiro(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>> On Sat, Oct 16, 2010 at 7:29 AM, Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com>
>> wrote:
>>> No doubt. The problem is that we're going to end up with those bells
>>> and whistles in two places: in to_char or other type-specific
>>> formatting functions, and again in format.
>>
>> If we decide to use C-like sprintf(), I think the only thing we can do
>> is to implement C-syntax as much as possible. Users will expect the
>> function behaves as sprintf, because it has the similar syntax.
>> It's not an item for now, but someone would request it at a future date.
>>
>>
>> BTW, the interoperability is why I proposed {} syntax. For example,
>> {1:YYYY-MM-DD} for date is expanded to to_char($1, 'YYYY-MM-DD').
>> (Maybe it's not so easy; It requires function lookups depending on types.)
>
> There's no particular reason why we couldn't make this work with
> sprintf-type syntax; for example, you could allow %{XYZ} to mean
> to_char(value, 'XYZ'). But it seems to me that we have agreement that
> this should start with just %s, %I, %L and allow 3$ or similar in the
> middle to specify which argument it is. We can then argue about how
> many more bells and whistles to add later.

so, yes. Can we finish this discus with this result? I'll prepare
patch for next commit fest. Next question - what about sprintf
function in core? Is living this idea still?

Regards

Pavel

>
> I would like to bounce this back for rework along the lines described
> above and ask for a resubmit to the next CF. We are out of time to
> consider this further for this CF, and clearly it's not ready to go
> ATM.
>
> --
> Robert Haas
> EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
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>