Subject: Re: PL/Java 1.5.1
To: Christoph Berg <myon@debian.org>, pgsql-pkg-debian@postgresql.org
References: <20181016113214.GA3027@msg.df7cb.de>
 <5BC5DE4D.3070502@anastigmatix.net>
From: Chapman Flack <chap@anastigmatix.net>
Message-ID: <5BC92CB0.2020007@anastigmatix.net>
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2018 21:00:32 -0400
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Hi Christoph,

Was there some objection in principle (or maybe just download size) to
building with -Psaxon-examples ?

If it is not objectionable, my preference would be to build with that
option (whenever the PG version >= 8.4 anyway).

A lot of the examples are just toy learning aids or tests, but the Saxon
examples are there for a useful, non-trivial purpose: to give real SQL:2006+
XML Query functionality, which core PG still lacks.

So I would like to make it as easy as possible for the user to try out
those examples. Even leaving the Saxon library as an optional download,
so one extra thing would have to be downloaded before those examples
work, that would still be less fuss than having to build the example
code separately AND download the library.

What do you think?

Thanks,
-Chap


On 10/16/18 08:49, Chapman Flack wrote:
> On 10/16/18 07:32, Christoph Berg wrote:
> 
>>> 2. You seem to be building packages for PG from 11 back to 9.3. For that
>>>    range of PG versions, it would be possible to add the -Psaxon-examples
> ...
>>>    It's actually safe to add -Psaxon-examples when building for any PG
>>>    version back to 8.4. Before 8.4, those examples can't be included
> 
>> I'm not really following how that relates to the range of PG versions?
>> Because it's "only" 8.4+ ?
> 
> The saxon-examples functions are declared with SQL syntax that didn't
> exist pre-8.4, so they would just be rejected as syntax errors in 8.3
> or 8.2.
> 
> The documentation illustrating how to call them uses named-parameter
> notation with => so it works as far back as 9.5, and with a simple
> substitution of := for => they can be called the same way as far back
> as 9.0. But the illustrations also show FROM clauses with LATERAL or
> with a function referring to earlier entries, which is only possible
> in 9.3+.
> 
> So the saxon-examples PG version range dependency boils down to:
> 
> * the functions can be built and installed in any version 8.4 and up
> * they are easy to use in 9.5 and up, following exactly the illustrations
>     in the docs
> * they are almost as easy to use in 9.3 and 9.4, changing => to :=
> * from 9.2 back to 8.4, they work, but require increasing devilish
>     cleverness to write SQL queries that use them.
> 
> -Chap
>