CREATE/ALTER PUBLICATION improvements for syntax synopsis

Peter Smith <smithpb2250@gmail.com>

From: Peter Smith <smithpb2250@gmail.com>
To: PostgreSQL Hackers <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>
Date: 2025-08-12T03:36:16Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers

Attachments

During some recent reviews in this area, I noticed both CREATE/ALTER
PUBLICATION synopses say:

----------
where publication_object is one of:

    TABLE [ ONLY ] table_name [ * ] [ ( column_name [, ... ] ) ] [
WHERE ( expression ) ] [, ... ]
    TABLES IN SCHEMA { schema_name | CURRENT_SCHEMA } [, ... ]
----------

IMO it would be better to include another pair of { } preceding the
TABLE ellipsis:
a) for consistency with the second (TABLES IN SCHEMA) case
b) to help remove ambiguity, what part of the syntax the TABLE ellipsis is for

e.g.
----------
    TABLE { [ ONLY ] table_name [ * ] [ ( column_name [, ... ] ) ] [
WHERE ( expression ) ] } [, ... ]
    TABLES IN SCHEMA { schema_name | CURRENT_SCHEMA } [, ... ]
----------

I attached a v1 patch to do this.

Thoughts?

======
Kind Regards,
Peter Smith.
Fujitsu Australia

Commits

  1. doc: Fix misleading synopsis for CREATE/ALTER PUBLICATION.