Re: add function argument names to regex* functions.

On Wed, May 15, 2024 at 3:25 PM David G. Johnston
<david(dot)g(dot)johnston(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> The function replaces matches, not random characters. And if you are reading the documentation I find it implausible that the wording I suggested would cause one to think in terms of characters instead of matches.

I mean I just told you what my reaction to it was. If you find that
reaction "implausible" then I guess you think I was lying when I said
that?

> N - The label provides zero context as to what the number you place there is going to be used for. Labels ideally do more work than this especially if someone takes the time to spell them out. Otherwise why use "pattern" instead of "p".

I feel like you're attacking a straw man here. I never said that N was
my first choice; in fact, I said the opposite. But I do think that if
the documentation says, as it does, that the function is
regexp_replace(source, pattern, replacement, start, N, flags), a
reader who has some idea what a function called regexp_replace might
do will probably be able to guess what N is. It's probably also true
that if we changed "pattern" to "p" they would still be able to guess
that too, because there's nothing other than a pattern that you'd
expect to pass to a regexp-replacement function that starts with p,
but it would still be worse than what we have now.

--
Robert Haas
EDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com