Re: Adjust error message for CREATE STATISTICS to account for expressions

On Fri, 27 Mar 2026 07:45:37 +0700
John Naylor <johncnaylorls(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:

> On Fri, Mar 27, 2026 at 6:23 AM Michael Paquier <michael(at)paquier(dot)xyz> wrote:
> > - errmsg("extended statistics require at least 2 columns")));
> > + errmsg("extended statistics are not supported on a single column")));
> >
> > Now our documentation also tells that the former message is not the
> > preferred project style (full sentences usually avoided in primary
> > messages):
> > https://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/error-style-guide.html#ERROR-STYLE-GUIDE-GRAMMAR-PUNCTUATION
>
> My reading of that is that hints/details need to be complete
> sentences, and primary messages don't need to be. If the obvious way
> to write primary message is with a complete sentence, I would say
> that's fine, but I don't have a lot of context here.
>
> > Perhaps something like "could not create extended statistics" with a
> > hint describing the cause would be better.. Full sentences usually
> > apply to errdetails or errhints. If we're on it, we could just as
> > well improve the whole thing, I guess?
>
> I don't feel strongly either way, so in that case I would default to
> not changing to errdetail. Looking elsewhere in this file, however, I
> do see some messages with "cannot do X because ....", and I'd be more
> motivated to turn those "because" phrases into errdetails.

I don't have a strong preference here, so I'm fine with either approach.
I also agree that moving "because ..." into errdetails in some longer
messages makes sense.

Regards,
Yugo Nagata

--
Yugo Nagata <nagata(at)sraoss(dot)co(dot)jp>