Re: MERGE ... RETURNING

Jeff Davis <pgsql@j-davis.com>

From: Jeff Davis <pgsql@j-davis.com>
To: Dean Rasheed <dean.a.rasheed@gmail.com>, Isaac Morland <isaac.morland@gmail.com>
Cc: PostgreSQL Hackers <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>
Date: 2023-07-13T16:01:04Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers

Commits

Same data as JSON: GET /api/v1/messages/:b64id/commits the thread's linked commits as JSON, with link sources. API reference →
  1. Add RETURNING support to MERGE.

  2. doc: Improve a couple of places in the MERGE docs.

  3. doc: improve description of privileges for MERGE and update glossary.

  4. Fix RLS policy usage in MERGE.

  5. Fix leak of LLVM "fatal-on-oom" section counter.

  6. Implement outer-level aggregates to conform to the SQL spec, with

On Mon, 2023-01-09 at 12:29 +0000, Dean Rasheed wrote:
> > Would it be feasible to allow specifying old.column or new.column?
> > These would always be NULL for INSERT and DELETE respectively but
> > more useful with UPDATE. Actually I've been meaning to ask this
> > question about UPDATE … RETURNING.
> > 
> 
> I too have wished for the ability to do that with UPDATE ...
> RETURNING, though I'm not sure how feasible it is.
> 
> I think it's something best considered separately though. I haven't
> given any thought as to how to make it work, so there might be
> technical difficulties. But if it could be made to work for UPDATE,
> it
> shouldn't be much more effort to make it work for MERGE.

MERGE can end up combining old and new values in a way that doesn't
happen with INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE. For instance, a "MERGE ... RETURNING
id" would return a mix of NEW.id (for INSERT/UPDATE actions) and OLD.id
(for DELETE actions).

The pg_merge_action() can differentiate the old and new values, but
it's a bit more awkward.

I'm fine considering that as a separate patch, but it does seem worth
discussing briefly here.

Regards,
	Jeff Davis