Re: Fixes a trivial bug in dumped parse/query/plan trees

Daniel Gustafsson <daniel@yesql.se> writes:
>> On 25 Aug 2025, at 02:54, Chao Li <li.evan.chao@gmail.com> wrote:
>> This patch fixes a trivial bug where an extra whitespace was added
>> when dumping an array, for example:
>> ...
>> The unnecessary whitespace is now removed.

> What about external parsers written for this format which might now break?
> (Judging by the commitlog I believe this format is intentional and not a bug.)

Yeah, I'm inclined to reject this patch.  This is by no stretch of the
imagination a "bug"; a more accurate characterization is that it's a
minor optimization that the original author did not think was worth
troubling with.  While our existing nodeRead code wouldn't have a
problem with removing the extra whitespace, I share your fear that
we could introduce bugs into some third-party code somewhere.
So the cost/benefit ratio of making the change doesn't look very good
to me.

I do have interest in trying to aggressively reduce the stored size
of view/rule parsetrees, and would be willing to break such
hypothetical third-party code in pursuit of a sufficiently large
improvement (say, 2X or better).  But a change like this one,
in isolation, isn't going to move that needle.

			regards, tom lane