Re: nchar is undocumented

On 2024-May-05, David Rowley wrote:

> On Sun, 5 May 2024 at 12:41, Erik Wienhold <ewie(at)ewie(dot)name> wrote:
> > So, I think we should either remove that one nchar instance (because it
> > doesn't add any real value) or document it properly. The attached patch
> > does the latter.
>
> It seems easier to do the former, that way we don't need to reconsider
> Peter's concerns about not having enough confidence that it matches
> the standard.
>
> I've included Alvaro and Peter to see what they think.

Yeah, I too am inclined to remove it. This text was initially written
by Mantrova, Bartunov and Glukhov and posted in [1] without further
explanation, from where it was copied by Glukhov into [2]; the one I
committed is a direct derivate from that. There was no discussion about
nchar specifically that I can see, and at least I simply failed to
realize that nchar was not something that we talk about.

I'll remove it from the list, and backpatch to 16.

[1] https://postgr.es/m/732208d3-56c3-25a4-8f08-3be1d54ad51b@postgrespro.ru
[2] https://postgr.es/m/8c1ba295-fa42-d4f2-a155-76cf3327d07c@postgrespro.ru
%

If you, Erik, want to spend some time thinking through the standard
definition of NCHAR and whether we conform, perhaps we can document it
more fully.

--
Álvaro Herrera 48°01'N 7°57'E — https://www.EnterpriseDB.com/
"Java is clearly an example of money oriented programming" (A. Stepanov)