Re: issue: record or row variable cannot be part of multiple-item INTO list

On Mon, Oct 2, 2017 at 12:44 PM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
>> And I'm saying - that argument is bogus. Regardless of what people
>> want or what we have historically done in the case where the
>> record/row is the only INTO target, when there are multiple targets it
>> seems clear that they want to match up the query's output columns with
>> the INTO targets 1:1. So let's just do that.
>
> Arguing that that's what people want (even if I granted your argument,
> which I do not) does not make the inconsistency magically disappear,
> nor will it stop people from being confused by that inconsistency.
> Furthermore, if we do it like this, we will be completely backed into
> a backwards-compatibility corner if someone does come along and say
> "hey, I wish I could do the other thing".

That is not really true. Even if we define INTO a, b, c as I am
proposing (and Pavel, too, I think), I think we can later define INTO
*a, INTO (a), INTO a ..., INTO a MULTIPLE, INTO a STRANGELY, and INTO
%(at)!a??ppp#zorp to mean anything we like (unless one or more of those
already have some semantics already, in which case pick something that
doesn't).

If we're really on the fence about which behavior people will want, we
could implement both with a syntax marker for each, say SELECT ...
INTO a #rhaas for the behavior I like and SELECT ... INTO a #tgl_ftw
for the other behavior, and require specifying one of those
decorations. Maybe that's more or less what you were proposing. If
we're going to have a default, though, I think it should be the one
you described as "inconsistent with the single row case" rather than
the one you described as "very bug-prone", because I agree with those
characterizations but feel that the latter is a much bigger problem
than the former and, again, not what anybody actually wants.

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