Re: add function argument names to regex* functions.

On Thu, May 16, 2024 at 3:10 AM Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
>
> Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> > On Thu, Apr 4, 2024 at 9:55 AM jian he <jian(dot)universality(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> >> changing "N" to lower-case would be misleading for regexp_replace?
> >> so I choose "count".
>
> > I don't see why that would be confusing for regexp_replace
> > specifically, but I think N => count is a reasonable change to make.
> > However, I don't think this quite works:
> > + then the <replaceable>count</replaceable>'th match of the pattern
>
> I think the origin of the problem here is not wanting to use "N"
> as the actual name of the parameter, because then users would have
> to double-quote it to write "regexp_replace(..., "N" => 42, ...)".
>
> However ... is that really so awful? It's still fewer keystrokes
> than "count". It's certainly a potential gotcha for users who've
> not internalized when they need double quotes, but I think we
> could largely address that problem just by making sure to provide
> a documentation example that shows use of "N".

done it this way. patch attached.

last example from

regexp_replace('A PostgreSQL function', 'a|e|i|o|u', 'X', 1, 3, 'i')
A PostgrXSQL function

change to

regexp_replace(string=>'A PostgreSQL function', pattern=>'a|e|i|o|u',
replacement=>'X',start=>1, "N"=>3, flags=>'i');
A PostgrXSQL function

but I am not 100% sure
<lineannotation>A PostgrXSQL
function</lineannotation>
is in the right position.

also address Chapman Flack point:
correct me if i am wrong, but i don't think the ISO standard mandates
function argument names.
So we can choose the best function argument name for our purpose?