Re: Idea: Avoid JOINs by using path expressions to follow FKs

On Tue, 30 Mar 2021 at 14:30, Joel Jacobson <joel(at)compiler(dot)org> wrote:

If the expression ends with a column_name,
> you get the value for the column.
>
> If the expression ends with a constraint_name,
> you get the referenced table as a record.
>

Can’t you just leave off the “ends with a column_name” part? If you want
one of its columns, just put .column_name:

table -> constraint -> ... -> constraint . column_name

Then you know that -> expects a constraint_name and only that to its right.

Also, should the join be a left join, which would therefore return a NULL
when there is no matching record? Or could we have a variation such as ->?
to give a left join (NULL when no matching record) with -> using an inner
join (record is not included in result when no matching record).

For the record I would find something like this quite useful. I constantly
find myself joining in code lookup tables and the like, and while from a
mathematical view it’s just another join, explicitly listing the table in
the FROM clause of a large query does not assist with readability to say
the least.