From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: pgsql-hackers@postgreSQL.org
Subject: Variable substitution in psql backtick expansion
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Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2017 13:33:31 -0400
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Awhile back in the discussion about the \if feature for psql,
I'd pointed out that you shouldn't really need very much in
the way of boolean-expression evaluation smarts, because you
ought to be able to use a backtick shell escape:

	\if `expr :foo \> :bar`
		\echo :foo is greater than :bar
	\endif

Now that the basic feature is in, I went to play around with this,
and was disappointed to find out that it doesn't work.  The reason
is not far to seek: we do not do variable substitution within the
text between backticks.  psqlscanslash.l already foresaw that some
day we'd want to do that:

	/*
	 * backticked text: copy everything until next backquote, then evaluate.
	 *
	 * XXX Possible future behavioral change: substitute for :VARIABLE?
	 */

I think today is that day, because it's going to make a material
difference to the usability of this feature.

I propose extending backtick processing so that

1. :VARIABLE is replaced by the contents of the variable

2. :'VARIABLE' is replaced by the contents of the variable,
single-quoted according to Unix shell conventions.  (So the
processing would be a bit different from what it is for the
same notation in SQL contexts.)

This doesn't look like it would take very much new code to do.

Thoughts?

			regards, tom lane


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