Re: proposal: FOREACH-IN-ARRAY (probably for 9.2?)

Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> Unfortunately, there are likely to be a limited number of such
> keywords available. While I agree it's helpful to have a clear
> distinction between what FOR does and what FOREACH does, it's wholly
> conventional here and won't be obvious without careful reading of the
> documentation. If we had FOR and FOREACH and FOREVERY and, uh,
> FORGET, it'd quickly become notational soup.

All true, but in the absence of any plausible candidate for third or
fourth or fifth types of iteration, this objection seems a bit thin.

> I am still wondering if
> there's a way to make something like "FOR ELEMENT e IN a" work. I
> suspect we'd be less likely to paint ourselves into a corner that way.

I'm afraid that's only really feasible if you are willing for the second
word to be a fully reserved word, so it can be distinguished from a
plain variable name in that position. Which is probably worse than
inventing multiple initial keywords. It doesn't seem to me that this
would reduce the intellectual burden of remembering which syntax does
what, anyway.

regards, tom lane