Re: patch: to_string, to_array functions

Brendan Jurd <direvus(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
>> I have attached v4 of the patch against HEAD, and also an incremental
>> patch showing just my changes against v3.
>>
>> I'll mark this as ready for committer.

Looking at this, I want to question the implode/explode naming. I think
those names are too cute by half, not particularly mnemonic, not visibly
related to the similar existing functions, and not friendly to any
future extension in the same area.

My first thought is that we should go back to the string_to_array and
array_to_string names. The key reason not to use those names was the
conflict with the old functions if you didn't specify a third argument,
but where is the advantage of not specifying the third argument? It
would be a lot simpler for people to understand if we just said "the
two-argument forms work like this, while the three-argument forms work
like that". This is especially reasonable because the difference in
behavior is about nulls in the array, which is exactly what the third
argument exists to specify.

[ Sorry for not complaining about this before, but I was on vacation
when the previous naming discussion went on. ]

regards, tom lane