Re: file_fdw: Support multi-line HEADER option.

Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>

From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: Fujii Masao <masao.fujii@gmail.com>
Cc: Steven Niu <niushiji@gmail.com>, Álvaro Herrera <alvherre@kurilemu.de>, Shinya Kato <shinya11.kato@gmail.com>, Chao Li <li.evan.chao@gmail.com>, PostgreSQL-development <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>
Date: 2026-01-22T02:58:48Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
Fujii Masao <masao.fujii@gmail.com> writes:
> On Wed, Jan 21, 2026 at 5:18 PM Steven Niu <niushiji@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I've noticed an inconsistent naming convention in the patch:
>> we use a capitalized Boolean for the boolean type, but a lowercase integer when referring to the value type.
>> Is there any reason why we follow this mixed style?

> I don't have a strong opinion on this. "Boolean value" has been used in command
> error messages from before, and I couldn't find any messages that use the term
> "Integer". So I committed the patch with the original wording.

For context, the reason that "Boolean" is often capitalized is
that the term refers to an identifiable person, George Boole [1].
You don't see "Newtonian" or "Einsteinian" without caps either.
So this message is not wrong in isolation.  But I don't think that
we have a consistent project style about whether to capitalize
"Boolean" or not.  It's not a correct spelling of the SQL type name,
for sure, but it's commonplace when being used as an adjective.
So does staying consistent with the lower-case type name justify
spelling "Boolean algebra" without caps?  I dunno.

If anyone wants to investigate this some more and recommend that
we adopt a project style rule (and create a patch to fix the
stragglers), have at it.

			regards, tom lane

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Boole



Commits

  1. file_fdw: Support multi-line HEADER option.

  2. Improve the error message in COPY with HEADER option.

  3. Support multi-line headers in COPY FROM command.