Re: Add RESPECT/IGNORE NULLS and FROM FIRST/LAST options

Greetings,

This seems to have died out, and that's pretty unfortunate because this
is awfully useful SQL standard syntax that people look for and wish we
had.

* Andrew Gierth (andrew@tao11.riddles.org.uk) wrote:
> So I've tried to rough out a decision tree for the various options on
> how this might be implemented (discarding the "use precedence hacks"
> option). Opinions? Additions?
> 
> (formatted for emacs outline-mode)
> 
> * 1. use lexical lookahead
> 
>   +: relatively straightforward parser changes
>   +: no new reserved words
>   +: has the option of working extensibly with all functions
> 
>   -: base_yylex needs extending to 3 lookahead tokens

This sounds awful grotty and challenging to do and get right, and the
alternative (just reserving these, as the spec does) doesn't seem so
draconian as to be that much of an issue.

> * 2. reserve nth_value etc. as functions
> 
>   +: follows the spec reasonably well
>   +: less of a hack than extending base_yylex
> 
>   -: new reserved words
>   -: more parser rules
>   -: not extensible
> 

For my 2c, at least, reserving these strikes me as entirely reasonable.
Yes, it sucks that we have to partially-reserve some additional
keywords, but such is life.  I get that we'll throw syntax errors
sometimes when we might have given a better error, but I think we can
accept that.

>   (now goto 1.2.1)

Hmm, not sure this was right?  but sure, I'll try...

> *** 1.2.1. Check the function name in parse analysis against a fixed list.
> 
>   +: simple
>   -: not extensible

Seems like this is more-or-less required since we'd be reserving them..?

> *** 1.2.2. Provide some option in CREATE FUNCTION
> 
>   +: extensible
>   -: fairly intrusive, adding stuff to create function and pg_proc

How would this work though, if we reserve the functions as keywords..?
Maybe I'm not entirely following, but wouldn't attempts to use other
functions end up with syntax errors in at least some of the cases,
meaning that having other functions support this wouldn't really work?
I don't particularly like the idea that some built-in functions would
always work but others would work but only some of the time.

> *** 1.2.3. Do something magical with function argument types
> 
>   +: doesn't need changes in create function / pg_proc
>   -: it's an ugly hack

Not really a fan of 'ugly hack'.

> * 3. "just say no" to the spec
> 
>   e.g. add new functions like lead_ignore_nulls(), or add extra boolean
>   args to lead() etc. telling them to skip nulls
> 
>   +: simple
>   -: doesn't conform to spec
>   -: using extra args isn't quite the right semantics

Ugh, no thank you.

Thanks!

Stephen