From: Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>
Message-Id: <201009201529.o8KFTLQ18950@momjian.us>
Subject: Re: Terms.
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTin2wu81c_TfQijqU=CGH=fFF+1g-LF=ArQopCsy@mail.gmail.com>
To: Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2010 11:29:21 -0400 (EDT)
CC: Dmitriy Igrishin <dmitigr@gmail.com>, pgsql-docs@postgresql.org
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Robert Haas wrote:
> With respect to PQnfields() vs. PQftablecol(), I think the word
> "fields" is being used to refer to the columns of the result set, and
> the word "columns" to refer to the columns of tables on the server.
> So PQftablecol() is actually trying to tell you the number of the
> table column where a particular "field" in the results came from.
> This is sort of a subtle distinction, though, and the fact that
> "field" is being abbreviated to "f" in some but not all cases doesn't
> make it any more clear.  PQftablecol() is really supposed to mean
> "field-table-column" - i.e. look up the table column for this field.
> But the name is definitely less than totally self-documenting.

FYI, many of these function names date back to Berkeley.  Libpq is
called 'libpq' because of the original use of the QUEL query language,
i.e. lib Post-QUEL.  We have a proud backward-compatibility history with
this library.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        http://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB                             http://enterprisedb.com

  + It's impossible for everything to be true. +