Horton

Re: factorial function/phase out postfix operators?

Vik Fearing <vik@postgresfriends.org>

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From: Vik Fearing <vik@postgresfriends.org>
To: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>, Peter Eisentraut <peter.eisentraut@2ndquadrant.com>
Cc: pgsql-hackers <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>
Date: 2020-05-19T02:30:23Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers 
On 5/19/20 4:03 AM, Tom Lane wrote:
> Peter Eisentraut <peter.eisentraut@2ndquadrant.com> writes:
>> What are the thoughts about then marking the postfix operator deprecated 
>> and eventually removing it?
> 
> If we do this it'd require a plan.  We'd have to also warn about the
> feature deprecation in (at least) the CREATE OPERATOR man page, and
> we'd have to decide how many release cycles the deprecation notices
> need to stand for.

I have never come across any custom postfix operators in the wild, and
I've never even seen ! used in practice.

So I would suggest a very short deprecation period.  Deprecate now in
13, let 14 go by, and rip it all out for 15.  That should give us enough
time to extend the deprecation period if we need to, or go back on it
entirely (like I seem to remember we did with VACUUM FREEZE).

> If that's the intention, though, it'd be good to get those deprecation
> notices published in v13 not v14.

+1
-- 
Vik Fearing

Commits

  1. Remove precedence hacks no longer needed without postfix operators.

  2. Allow most keywords to be used as column labels without requiring AS.

  3. Remove support for postfix (right-unary) operators.

  4. Remove factorial operators, leaving only the factorial() function.

  5. Further refine patch for commenting operator implementation functions.