Re: [HACKERS] quote_literal with NULL

On Fri, 2007-10-12 at 02:11 +1000, Brendan Jurd wrote:

> Per discussion on -hackers, I've implemented a new internal function
> quote_nullable, as an alternative to quote_literal. The difference is
> that quote_nullable returns the text value 'NULL' on NULL input, which
> is suitable for insertion into an SQL statement.

Patch looks fine.

> The idea is that when you're writing a plpgsql function with dynamic
> queries, you can use quote_nullable for values which are
> possibly-null. You're still responsible for handling NULLs sensibly
> within your query, but at least you get a syntactically valid SQL
> statement.
>
> I've included doc updates but no new regression tests.

I think you should add some examples to show how we would handle an
INSERT or an UPDATE SET with quite_nullable() and a SELECT WHERE clause
with quote_literal. The difference is a subtle one, which is why nobody
mentioned it before, so it needs some better docs too.

A cross-ref to the functions page would help also.

--
Simon Riggs
2ndQuadrant http://www.2ndQuadrant.com