From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: Andreas Kretschmer <andreas@a-kretschmer.de>
cc: pgsql-docs@lists.postgresql.org
Subject: Re: documentation for WITH RECURSIVE
In-reply-to: <ca53c6ce-a0c6-b14a-a8e3-162f0b2cc119@a-kretschmer.de>
References: <ca53c6ce-a0c6-b14a-a8e3-162f0b2cc119@a-kretschmer.de>
Comments: In-reply-to Andreas Kretschmer <andreas@a-kretschmer.de>
	message dated "Mon, 18 Nov 2019 15:36:24 +0100"
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Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2019 12:32:08 -0500
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Andreas Kretschmer <andreas@a-kretschmer.de> writes:
> One of our customers had problems with the syntax of WITH RECURSIVE. He 
> suggested that the documentation should be improved, maybe with this 
> sentence:
> "If any of the CTEs is recursive, the recursive keywork must be present 
> after with", so to make sure that it does not refer to just one of the 
> named subqueries.

Hm, was this intended for the SELECT man page (presumably in the
"WITH Clause" section), or for section 7.8?

In the SELECT page, I'd be inclined to put it after the para about
"queries need not be ordered" and phrase it more like

  If there are multiple queries in the WITH clause, RECURSIVE can
  be written only once, immediately after WITH.  It applies to all
  queries in the WITH clause (but has no effect on queries that do
  not use either of these features).

			regards, tom lane