Re: add label to enum syntax
Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>
From: Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>
To: Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net>
Cc: Dean Rasheed <dean.a.rasheed@gmail.com>, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>, Pavel Stehule <pavel.stehule@gmail.com>, "David E. Wheeler" <david@kineticode.com>, PostgreSQL-development <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>
Date: 2010-10-26T14:15:28Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 9:54 AM, Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net> wrote: > > > On 10/26/2010 03:02 AM, Dean Rasheed wrote: >> >> In mathematics (and I think also computer science), the term >> conventionally used the refer to the things in an enumeration is >> "element", so how about ADD ELEMENT? > > Unlike the other suggestions, ELEMENT is not currently a keyword. That > doesn't rule it out entirely, but it's a factor worth consideration. > >> The label is just one of the ways of identifying the element, and the >> value is element's OID. The thing you're adding is an element, with >> both a label and a value. >> > > No, I think that's the wrong way of thinking about it entirely. The label > *is* the value and the OID is simply an implementation detail, which for the > most part we keep completely hidden from the user. We could have implemented > enums in ways that did not involve OIDs at all, with identical semantics. > > Notwithstanding the above, I don't think ELEMENT would be a very bad choice. I still think we should just go for LABEL and be done with it. But y'all can ignore me if you want... -- Robert Haas EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company