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Cc: Gavin Sherry <swm@linuxworld.com.au>, Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net>,
	pgsql-docs@postgresql.org, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>,
	Joe Conway <mail@joeconway.com>
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From: Michael Glaesemann <grzm@seespotcode.net>
Subject: Re: Values list-of-targetlists patch for comments (was Re:
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 13:35:46 +0900
To: Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>


On Aug 11, 2006, at 12:07 , Bruce Momjian wrote:

> Gavin Sherry wrote:
>>> A few examples on the command references pages to show how it can be
>>> useful are probably OK, but the big picture shoulbd be developed in
>>> chapter 7 or so.
>>
>> What do we want to do about documenting:
>>
>> regression=# values(1);
>>  column1
>> ---------
>>        1
>> (1 row)
>>
>> It seems to me that if this isn't in the command reference we'll  
>> see an
>> email every few months say 'is this an undocumented feature?'. We can
>> cover it easily in Part II, 7.2 but people wont look there. Then  
>> again, it
>> just doesn't seem right to put it in the command reference as a 'top
>> level' command.
>
> How many people are going to think of doing a VALUES(1)?  Isn't it  
> just
> like SELECT 1?  We can try making VALUES a non-toplevel command,  
> and if
> people get confused, we can promote in the documenation.  I think
> starting it at top-level is perhaps confusing.

Perhaps it may be confusing, but at the same time, it's educational  
to put VALUES at the top level. Having not read the SQL spec in  
detail, I do rely on the Postgres documentation as a quick reference.  
Thanks to the high-level of SQL-spec compliance, the Postgres  
documentation is pretty helpful in that way. And I'm always  
pleasantly surprised when I learn something new just from looking  
indices such as this.

Michael Glaesemann
grzm seespotcode net