Re: cardinality()

From: Andrew Dunstan <andrew(at)dunslane(dot)net>
To: Grzegorz Jaskiewicz <gj(at)pointblue(dot)com(dot)pl>
Cc: PostgreSQL-development Hackers <pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Re: cardinality()
Date: 2009-03-01 15:30:46
Message-ID: 49AAAA26.3080901@dunslane.net
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Grzegorz Jaskiewicz wrote:
>
> On 1 Mar 2009, at 00:52, Andrew Dunstan wrote:
>
>>
>> We seem to have acquired a cardinality() function with almost no
>> discussion, and it has semantics that are a bit surprising to me. I
>> should have thought cardinality(array) would be the total number of
>> elements in the array. Instead, it seems it is a synonym for
>> array_length(array,1). Is that *really* what the standard says?
>
> any difference between array_upper(array,1), and cardinality ?
> Standart just says something like:
>
> cardinality (a collection):
> - The number of elements in that collection.
> - Those elements need not necessarily have distinct values.
> - The objects to which this concept applies includes tables and the
> values of collection types.
>

Well, I think that's a definition of the term as used in the standard,
rather than of a function. But in any case, I think it goes in the right
direction, and the semantics of our new function (as well as the docs)
are misleading.

I'm also a bit concerned that I could not find any real discussion of
this new function at all on this list, so our processes seem to have
slipped a bit.

cheers

andrew

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