Re: hstore ==> and deprecate =>

On fre, 2010-06-11 at 10:57 -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> writes:
> >>> Btw., the SQL standard also defines -> for something else, so if you
> >>> wanted to be really visionary, you could deprecate that one as an
> >>> operator at the same time.
> >> 
> >> Ouch.  What does it define it to mean?
> 
> > Similar to C: Dereferencing a reference and accessing a member.
> 
> But a reference would be a datatype no?  So we could just regard that as
> an ordinary operator.  I don't see a reason why it would conflict with
> use of the same operator name for other datatypes (unlike the situation
> with =>).

The right side of the -> would be an identifier, like

(some expr yielding a ref)->attribute

or

objref->method(args)