Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2023 17:25:30 -0400
From: Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>
To: Laurenz Albe <laurenz.albe@cybertec.at>
Cc: pgsql-docs@lists.postgresql.org
Subject: Re: Remove obsolete mention of backslashes as escapes
Message-ID: <ZPuRSrUmkNWaptyS@momjian.us>
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Thanks, patch applied back to PG 11.

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On Tue, Apr 11, 2023 at 09:54:11AM +0200, Laurenz Albe wrote:
> The documentation in
> https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/sql-syntax-lexical.html#SQL-SYNTAX-DOLLAR-QUOTING
> says that
> 
>  "While the standard syntax for specifying string constants is usually convenient,
>   it can be difficult to understand when the desired string contains many single
>   quotes or backslashes, since each of those must be doubled."
> 
> But this has been obsolete ever since version 9.1, when "standard_conforming_strings"
> started to default to "on".  It has confused at least one reader:
> https://dba.stackexchange.com/q/325850/176905
> 
> So I propose to remove the mention of backslashes there.
> 
> Yours,
> Laurenz Albe

> From 282d2dae27524aef37cdafe02e4833894bf5892c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> From: Laurenz Albe <laurenz.albe@cybertec.at>
> Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2023 09:48:20 +0200
> Subject: [PATCH] Remove obsolete mention of backslashes as escapes
> 
> Since version 9.1, standard_conforming_strings defaults to "on".
> So the remark that backslashes must be doubled has been obsolete
> for a long time and should be removed.  It is more confusing than
> helpful by now.
> ---
>  doc/src/sgml/syntax.sgml | 2 +-
>  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
> 
> diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/syntax.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/syntax.sgml
> index 5668ab0143..3ba844057f 100644
> --- a/doc/src/sgml/syntax.sgml
> +++ b/doc/src/sgml/syntax.sgml
> @@ -555,7 +555,7 @@ U&amp;'d!0061t!+000061' UESCAPE '!'
>      <para>
>       While the standard syntax for specifying string constants is usually
>       convenient, it can be difficult to understand when the desired string
> -     contains many single quotes or backslashes, since each of those must
> +     contains many single quotes, since each of those must
>       be doubled. To allow more readable queries in such situations,
>       <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> provides another way, called
>       <quote>dollar quoting</quote>, to write string constants.
> -- 
> 2.39.2
> 


-- 
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        https://momjian.us
  EDB                                      https://enterprisedb.com

  Only you can decide what is important to you.