Re: Add missing period to HINT messages

On Thu, Apr 9, 2026 at 12:09 PM Chao Li <li(dot)evan(dot)chao(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Apr 9, 2026, at 07:30, Peter Smith <smithpb2250(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > According to the error message style guide [1], "Detail and hint
> > messages: Use complete sentences, and end each with a period."
> >
> > I found there is a small group of HINT messages not following that period rule.
> >
> > PSA a patch that fixes the missing period. In passing, also fixed a
> > typo in a hint message /msut/must/.
> >
> > ~~~
> >
> > On further inspection, lots of these affected messages don't even seem
> > grammatically correct to me.
> >
> > I did not modify them, but here are examples of what I mean.
> >
> > e.g.
> > "ALTER TABLE ... MERGE PARTITIONS can only merge partitions don't have
> > sub-partitions."
> > /don't have/that don't have/
> >
> > e.g.
> > "ALTER TABLE ... SPLIT PARTITION can only split partitions don't have
> > sub-partitions."
> > /don't have/that don't have/
> >
> > e.g.
> > "To split DEFAULT partition one of the new partition must be DEFAULT."
> > missing word? -- "To split the DEFAULT partition"
> > should be plural? -- "one of the new partitions"
> >
> > e.g.
> > "%s require combined bounds of new partitions must exactly match the
> > bound of the split partition."
> > /require/requires/ ?
> > /match the bound/match the bounds/
> >
> > ======
> > [1] https://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/error-style-guide.html#ERROR-STYLE-GUIDE-GRAMMAR-PUNCTUATION
> >
> > Kind Regards,
> > Peter Smith.
> > Fujitsu Australia
> > <v1-0001-Add-missing-period-to-HINT-messages.patch>
>
> LGTM.
>
> BTW, errdetail should follow the same style, and I see some detail messages miss periods, maybe this patch can include those as well.
>

Yep. It is already under way. I will post the equivalent errdetail
patch shortly. (as soon as it passes running make- check-world).

======
Kind Regards,
Peter Smith.
Fujitsu Australia