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help / color / mirror / Atom feedFrom: Chao Li <[email protected]>
To: Robert Treat <[email protected]>
Cc: Postgres hackers <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: DOC: fixes multiple errors in alter table doc
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2026 17:38:14 +0800
Message-ID: <CAEoWx2mOW=JMjSNrNsc3b-+8w0wbT2f6FSsyudD_Q-0pe_fkfw@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
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<[email protected]>
<[email protected]>
On Thu, Jan 22, 2026 at 5:33 PM Chao Li <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> > On Jan 8, 2026, at 09:38, Chao Li <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >> On Jan 8, 2026, at 07:13, Robert Treat <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>
> >> On Sat, Jan 3, 2026 at 11:30 PM Chao Li <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>> On Jan 2, 2026, at 10:54, Robert Treat <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>> Hi Robert,
> >>>
> >>> Thanks you very much for your review.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Thu, Dec 18, 2025 at 2:22 AM Chao Li <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> >>> Hi Hacker,
> >> <snip>
> >>> 2. In sub-command details section, "ADD COLUMN [ IF NOT EXISTS ]”
> missed “[]" with “COLUMN”, which is misleading, because “COLUMN” is
> actually optional.
> >>>
> >>> Seems technically correct and potentially useful, and I see you
> >>> handled this for the DROP COLUMN variant as well, so I could see a +1
> >>> on this one.
> >>>
> >>> Thanks for confirming.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> 3. For all “alter column” sub-commands, "ALTER [ COLUMN ]” are
> omitted, which is also confusing, because none of other sub-commands omit
> their prefix part.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Hmm... I'm curious what you find confusing about this. Is the
> >>> confusion in trying to find or understand the information presented,
> >>> or confusing as to why it isn't all documented the same way? The
> >>> downside of your "fix" is that this introduces a lot of extra text
> >>> that is more or less noise, especially for folks trying to skim the
> >>> documents looking for very specific command references. And while I
> >>> agree that we aren't 100% consistent on this within the ALTER TABLE
> >>> subcommands, we use this same mixed pattern of omission on other pages
> >>> (see ALTER TYPE for instance). If we were to insist on making this
> >>> consistent here, I think we'd probably need to look at other pages as
> >>> well and evaluate or update them too. I'm not sure that would be an
> >>> improvement though.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> The confusion came from my own first-time reading of the
> documentation. Since the page is quite long, when I was reading the action
> descriptions and wanted to confirm the exact sub-command syntax, I often
> had to scroll back up to the syntax section. That led me to think it might
> be helpful to include the full sub-command form directly with the action
> descriptions.
> >>>
> >>> That said, I understand your concern. The change did make the text
> longer and added noise. In v2, I’ve therefore reverted that broader change.
> As you pointed out, if we were to pursue this kind of consistency, it would
> need to be handled across other similar pages as well, which would be
> better done as a dedicated and more carefully scoped patch.
> >>>
> >>> So, v2’s scope is significantly reduced, only a fix for my original
> point 2 is retained.
> >>>
> >>
> >> Makes sense to me and seems like an improvement, so +1.
> >>
> >
> > Hi Robert,
> >
> > Thank you very much for your review. This is the CF entry
> https://commitfest.postgresql.org/patch/6328/, you may add you as a
> reviewer. And I just changed the status to Ready for Committer.
> >
> > Best regards,
> > --
> > Chao Li (Evan)
> > HighGo Software Co., Ltd.
> > https://www.highgo.com/
>
> Bump. This is a tiny doc fix.
>
PFA v3: Rebased, and added reviewer and discussion information.
Best regards,
--
Chao Li (Evan)
HighGo Software Co., Ltd.
https://www.highgo.com/
Attachments:
[application/octet-stream] v3-0001-docs-reflect-optional-COLUMN-keyword-in-ALTER-TAB.patch (1.8K, ../CAEoWx2mOW=JMjSNrNsc3b-+8w0wbT2f6FSsyudD_Q-0pe_fkfw@mail.gmail.com/3-v3-0001-docs-reflect-optional-COLUMN-keyword-in-ALTER-TAB.patch)
download | inline diff:
From 6921432e9ae12910a0cd3892a72631b3a061d1ae Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: "Chao Li (Evan)" <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2025 15:18:22 +0800
Subject: [PATCH v3] docs: reflect optional COLUMN keyword in ALTER TABLE
descriptions
The ALTER TABLE description entries for ADD COLUMN and DROP COLUMN
omitted the fact that the COLUMN keyword is optional. Adjust the
command summaries to match the documented syntax by marking COLUMN
as optional.
This is a documentation-only change; no behavior is altered.
Author: Chao Li <[email protected]>
Reviewed-by: Robert Treat <[email protected]>
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/CAEoWx2n6ShLMOnjOtf63TjjgGbgiTVT5OMsSOFmbjGb6Xue1Bw@mail.gmail.com
---
doc/src/sgml/ref/alter_table.sgml | 4 ++--
1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/ref/alter_table.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/ref/alter_table.sgml
index 1bd479c917a..d69e5de8451 100644
--- a/doc/src/sgml/ref/alter_table.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/ref/alter_table.sgml
@@ -163,7 +163,7 @@ WITH ( MODULUS <replaceable class="parameter">numeric_literal</replaceable>, REM
<variablelist>
<varlistentry id="sql-altertable-desc-add-column">
- <term><literal>ADD COLUMN [ IF NOT EXISTS ]</literal></term>
+ <term><literal>ADD [ COLUMN ] [ IF NOT EXISTS ]</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>
This form adds a new column to the table, using the same syntax as
@@ -175,7 +175,7 @@ WITH ( MODULUS <replaceable class="parameter">numeric_literal</replaceable>, REM
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry id="sql-altertable-desc-drop-column">
- <term><literal>DROP COLUMN [ IF EXISTS ]</literal></term>
+ <term><literal>DROP [ COLUMN ] [ IF EXISTS ]</literal></term>
<listitem>
<para>
This form drops a column from a table. Indexes and
--
2.50.1 (Apple Git-155)
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Subject: Re: DOC: fixes multiple errors in alter table doc
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