Re: Calling PL functions with named parameters

I would personally find this useful, but I would suggest using Oracle's
syntax of SELECT func(a=>2, b=>'b', ...);

Having said that, having the concept of DEFAULT for parameters wolud be
even more useful, ie:

CREATE FUNCTION blah (
a int
, b int DEFAULT 0
);

SELECT blah(1,0);
and
SELECT blah(1);
would do the same thing. (Yes, I know there's a work-around, but it's a
bit of a pain if you've got 10 parameters that could be omitted).

On Fri, Aug 13, 2004 at 02:41:48PM -0700, David Fetter wrote:
> Kind people,
>
> I've brought this up before, and with Dennis Bjrklund's help, would
> like to bring it up again. Here's the idea:
>
> I'd like to be able to create functions with named parameters that
> could be called with the names in any order. For example,
>
> CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION foo_func(name TEXT, val INTEGER) AS ...
>
> SELECT foo_func(val AS 23, name AS 'Name goes here');
>
> and have it Do The Right Thing.
>
> Dennis has pointed out that mixing the call-with-named-parameter
> interface with call-by-order-of-parameters one would cause confusion,
> and I think it would be OK to disallow this type mixing, so
>
> SELECT foo_func(name AS 'yet another name', 35);
>
> would be disallowed.
>
> A calling convention that names parameters makes it a lot easier to
> track just exactly what parameter is set to which value, and lets
> people not have to memorize what order those named parameters appear
> in. On a related note, it would also be nice to have default
> parameters and some way to say to use them.
>
> Well, that's my thoughts so far. What are yours?
>
> Cheers,
> D
> --
> David Fetter david(at)fetter(dot)org http://fetter.org/
> phone: +1 510 893 6100 mobile: +1 415 235 3778
>
> Remember to vote!
>
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