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From: Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>
Message-Id: <201110050147.p951lG908071@momjian.us>
Subject: Re: coalesce
In-Reply-To: <1316623022-sup-9692@alvh.no-ip.org>
To: Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@commandprompt.com>
Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2011 21:47:15 -0400 (EDT)
CC: Henry Drexler <alonup8tb@gmail.com>,
	Kevin Grittner <kevin.grittner@wicourts.gov>,
	Pg Docs <pgsql-docs@postgresql.org>
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Alvaro Herrera wrote:
> 
> Excerpts from Henry Drexler's message of mié sep 21 12:50:18 -0300 2011:
> > thanks,
> > 
> > so I take it I am not getting those more complex examples (that are
> > apparently beyond my use case), I will take a look at them again.
> 
> Maybe the fix is just to add a simpler example, without altering the
> wording (which seems pretty clear to me as well, but then I already know
> what COALESCE does).

Here is a doc patch that at least explains the example.  Applied.

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

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

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diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/func.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/func.sgml
new file mode 100644
index 0b6a109..2f307c2
*** a/doc/src/sgml/func.sgml
--- b/doc/src/sgml/func.sgml
*************** SELECT ... WHERE CASE WHEN x &lt;&gt; 0 
*** 10015,10020 ****
--- 10015,10022 ----
  <programlisting>
  SELECT COALESCE(description, short_description, '(none)') ...
  </programlisting>
+    This returns <varname>description</> if it is not null, or
+    <varname>short_description</> if it is not null, or <literal>(none)</>.
    </para>
  
     <para>

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