Re: 4.1.4. Special Characters

> I think if you want to go in that direction, you should refactor saying
> something like "* is the shorthand for all the user-defined columns (see
> system columns)". What do you think?

Thanks for the suggestion. Changing the existing sentence is cleaner
than adding a new one.

The attached v3 changes the first sentence of that paragraph on the
SELECT reference page to say that * is a shorthand for all the columns
of the selected rows, not including system columns, with a link to the
System Columns section. I used "not including system columns" instead
of "user-defined columns", since the docs don't use that term for this.
I also dropped the example to keep the change small.

The docs build cleanly with make check and make html.

Thanks & Regards

On Tue, Nov 3, 2026 at 9:06 AM Matemática A3K <matematica(dot)a3k(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>
> I think if you want to go in that direction, you should refactor saying something like "* is the shorthand for all the user-defined columns (see system columns)". What do you think?
>
> On Mon, Nov 2, 2026 at 4:55 AM Arvind Kandpal <arvind(dot)kandpal(at)ksolves(dot)com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Peter,
>>
>> Following up on the v2 patch I sent to the list on Oct 28, based on your suggestion to update the SELECT reference page instead of section 4.1.4. I'm attaching it again here for convenience.
>>
>> When you have time, could you take a look and let me know if it looks good or needs any changes?
>>
>> Thanks and Regards,
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 28, 2026 at 3:43 PM Arvind Kandpal <arvind(dot)kandpal(at)ksolves(dot)com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Subject: Re: 4.1.4. Special Characters
>>>
>>> On 28.10.26 Peter Eisentraut wrote:
>>> > I think the section that you are patching is more for roughly mentioning
>>> > all the possible uses of various characters, but it's not the
>>> > authoritative source for what all those characters mean in detail in
>>> > those contexts. Otherwise, this could get out of hand. I would have
>>> > expected to find that for this particular case on the SELECT reference
>>> > page, but it's not mentioned there either. Maybe that page should be
>>> > updated?
>>>
>>> Thanks for the review. That makes sense.
>>>
>>> The attached v2 drops the change to section 4.1.4 and instead adds a
>>> sentence to the SELECT List section of the SELECT reference page. It
>>> says that neither * nor table_name.* includes system columns, which
>>> must be listed by name, and links to the System Columns section.
>>>
>>> The docs build cleanly with make check and make html.
>>>
>>> Thanks and Regards,
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Oct 28, 2026 at 3:32 PM Peter Eisentraut <peter(at)eisentraut(dot)org> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > On 28.10.26 09:15, Arvind Kandpal wrote:
>>> > > The attached patch adds a sentence to the asterisk item in section
>>> > > 4.1.4, saying that system columns are not included in * and must be
>>> > > selected by name, with the suggested example and a link to the System
>>> > > Columns section.
>>> > >
>>> > > I built the docs locally (make check and make html) and the new text
>>> > > and link render fine.
>>> >
>>> > I think the section that you are patching is more for roughly mentioning
>>> > all the possible uses of various characters, but it's not the
>>> > authoritative source for what all those characters mean in detail in
>>> > those contexts. Otherwise, this could get out of hand. I would have
>>> > expected to find that for this particular case on the SELECT reference
>>> > page, but it's not mentioned there either. Maybe that page should be
>>> > updated?
>>> >
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Arvind Kandpal
>>> Junior Software Engineer
>>> (+91) 9650266413 www.ksolves.com
>>>
>>> Years of
>>> listing on
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Arvind Kandpal
>> Junior Software Engineer
>> (+91) 9650266413 www.ksolves.com
>>
>> Years of
>> listing on
>>
>>

--
Arvind Kandpal
Junior Software Engineer
(+91) 9650266413 www.ksolves.com

Years of
listing on