Re: Appendix A. PostgreSQL Error Codes

From: "Jonathan S(dot) Katz" <jkatz(at)postgresql(dot)org>
To: Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>
Cc: Andy Dossett <dossett(at)btinternet(dot)com>, Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us>, pgsql-docs(at)lists(dot)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: Appendix A. PostgreSQL Error Codes
Date: 2018-04-29 04:33:59
Message-ID: 31ADFE0E-37A4-4FF8-B18D-F8957F69A4E3@postgresql.org
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> On Apr 28, 2018, at 5:11 PM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
>
> "Andy Dossett" <dossett(at)btinternet(dot)com> writes:
>> The use case is pretty simple; my system has thrown an SQL error code, I
>> want to know what it means.
>> Having the list in 'order by sqlstate' sequence would save me from having to
>> hunt up and down the list. And I can easily determine if the error code is
>> missing; I can then raise another bug report.
>
> Hm ... I'm not finding that to be a very compelling argument. Reading the
> message text is usually *far* more illuminating, because the error codes
> are (in many cases) rather broad categories rather than exact conditions.
> For the use case of "why did I get this error", I'd say that looking in
> Appendix A is quite unhelpful, and sorting it differently wouldn't make
> it any more helpful.

Is this information we might want to add to the main part of the website?
We could provide the list of error codes in Appendix A as is right now,
reference to “see more info on "/support/sql-error-codes/“ or some URL.
The table on such a page could contain features such as:

- sortable by number vs. alphabetical
- “searchable” if needed (eliminate results)
- more information about what causes such errors, perhaps with an
example of the detailed message.

I don’t know if this would be helpful or not. Personally I’ve only looked
at the error codes section a handful of times, mostly out of curiosity or
experimenting with ORM/adapter type code.

Jonathan

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