Re: greatest/least semantics different between oracle and postgres

From: "John D(dot) Burger" <john(at)mitre(dot)org>
To: "PostgreSQL General ((EN))" <pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Re: greatest/least semantics different between oracle and postgres
Date: 2007-06-30 16:33:32
Message-ID: 8A71F52A-827B-456D-B75A-EF1CD1B15F57@mitre.org
Views: Raw Message | Whole Thread | Download mbox | Resend email
Thread:
Lists: pgsql-general

Tom Lane wrote:

> Anyway, there's no doubt that we can point to the behavior of MAX/MIN
> as defense for what we made GREATEST/LEAST do, so I'm inclined to
> leave
> their behavior alone, at least until such time as they're actually
> standardized.

I don't think I buy this - MIN and MAX are aggregates, GREATEST is
just a function, yes? There would seem to be a very strong analogy
with SUM and the addition function, yet 2 + NULL is NULL, while SUM
ignores NULLs. (Not in front of a console, sorry if I'm mistaken.)

- John Burger
MITRE

In response to

Browse pgsql-general by date

  From Date Subject
Next Message Bruno Wolff III 2007-06-30 17:33:24 Re: greatest/least semantics different between oracle and postgres
Previous Message Bruce Momjian 2007-06-30 16:13:48 Re: greatest/least semantics different between oracle and postgres