Re: Query issue/8.0.1/Serendipity

>On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 10:37:51 -0500, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
> Larry Rosenman <ler(at)lerctr(dot)org> writes:
> > I have an 8.0.1 server running the Blogging software serendipity, and the
> > following query fails with "relation e not defined", but it is on the first
> > line:
>
> > "SELECT timestamp FROM serendipity_entries e, serendipity_category c,
> > serendipity_entrycat ec LEFT OUTER JOIN serendipity_entryproperties
> > ep_cache_extended ON (e.id = ep_cache_extended.entryid AND
> > ep_cache_extended.property = 'ep_cache_extended') ...
>
> Broken SQL that's only ever been tested on MySQL.
>
> Last I heard, MySQL treated this sort of construct as joining
> left-to-right, ie,
>
> FROM e CROSS JOIN c CROSS JOIN ec LEFT JOIN ...
>
> in which case the left argument of the LEFT JOIN already contains
> e, c, and ec so it's OK for the JOIN condition to use e. Unfortunately
> for MySQL users everywhere, this is expressly contrary to the SQL spec:
> per spec, JOIN binds more tightly than commas in the FROM-list do.
>
> (Is this on the mysql gotchas page?)

Nope, although as my plans for the week involve evaluating
Serendipity using PostgreSQL I'll look into it.

Ian Barwick
barwick(at)gmail(dot)com