From: "Miko O Sullivan" <miko@idocs.com>
To: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>, miko@idocs.com (Miko O'Sullivan)
Cc: pgsql-sql@postgresql.org
Subject: Need more examples (was "session variable")
Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2003 17:50:57 -0400
Message-Id: <20030917214228.M75792@idocs.com>
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On Wed, 17 Sep 2003 17:23:05 -0400, Tom Lane wrote
> miko@idocs.com (Miko O'Sullivan) writes:
> > Unfortunately in the 7.2.x version I have available, EXECUTE does not
> > allow "select into".  The docs suggests a technique for using a FOR
> > loop to extract information from an EXECUTE, but the technique only
> > works for finite set of expected variables, not for arbitrary values.
> 
> How do you figure that?  AFAICS "FOR" with a record variable as 
> target will cover any case that SELECT INTO could handle.

Tom:  I don't "figure" it, it's just all I could get from documentation and 
discussion that is rather sparse in concrete examples.  For example, this 
thread includes two postings that indicate that session variables can be 
done, and make references to commands, but fail to actually show how to do 
them.  The documentation is the same way.  The one example for FOR loops is 
confusing and overly broad.  It fail to step through the example code clearly 
showing where a value from a temp table is extracted and stored in a variable.

I certainly don't mean to be critical, because PostGres is a fantastic 
product.  However, we in the open source community need to learn that 
software is only as good as its documentation.  Concrete examples are the 
heart of good technical documentation.  I would go so far to say that any 
technical documentation w/o simple concrete examples demonstrating each point 
is at best a quarter as useful as it might be.

I guess I should live by my own words, so for concrete examples of concrete 
examples, please see any of the pages in the Idocs Guide to HTML.  There are 
links at http://www.idocs.com.


-Miko


Miko O'Sullivan
Programmer Analyst
Rescue Mission of Roanoke