Subject: Re: add function argument names to regex* functions.
To: jian he <jian.universality@gmail.com>, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
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Cc: Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>,
 Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org>, Dian Fay <di@nmfay.com>,
 Jim Nasby <jim.nasby@gmail.com>,
 PostgreSQL Hackers <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>
From: Chapman Flack <jcflack@acm.org>
Message-ID: <6695362E.4010202@acm.org>
Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2024 10:46:06 -0400
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On 07/15/24 08:02, jian he wrote:
> also address Chapman Flack point:
> correct me if i am wrong, but i don't think the ISO standard mandates
> function argument names.
> So we can choose the best function argument name for our purpose?

Ah, I may have mistaken which functions the patch meant to apply to.

These being the non-ISO regexp_* functions using POSIX expressions,
the ISO standard indeed says nothing about them.

In the ISO standard *_regex "functions", there are not really "function
argument names" mandated, because, like so many things in ISO SQL, they
have their own special syntax instead of being generic function calls:

TRANSLATE_REGEX('a|e|i|o|u' FLAG 'i' IN 'A PostgreSQL function'
 WITH 'X' FROM 1 OCCURRENCE 3);

Any choice to use similar argument names in the regexp_* functions would
be a matter of consistency with the analogous ISO functions, not anything
mandated.

Regards,
-Chap