Re: What do I do with this error?

"Josh Berkus" <josh(at)agliodbs(dot)com> writes:
> Tom,
>> regression=# select 'foo' ~* '';
>> ERROR: regcomp failed with error empty (sub)expression
>>
>> This is correct according to the POSIX definition of regular
>> expressions
>> ("A (modern) RE is one or more non-empty branches ...").

> That sounds like what I'm seeing! And now that you point it out, there
> is a bug in the PHP that calls this function that passes an empty string
> ('') instead of a NULL. Thanks!

> Any possibility that that error message could be made more informative?
> (i.e. ERROR: regcomp failed due to empty string in regular expression)

You're right, this isn't a very transparent message. Perhaps

ERROR: Invalid regular expression (empty expression or subexpression)

Comments, better wordings?

regards, tom lane