Re: Problems with question marks in operators (JDBC, ECPG, ...)

On 19 May 2015 at 16:36, Kevin Grittner <kgrittn(at)ymail(dot)com> wrote:

> Gavin Flower <GavinFlower(at)archidevsys(dot)co(dot)nz> wrote:
>
> > I prefer the $1 approach, others can't use that, and there are
> > situations where I could not either.
> >
> > So, how about defaulting to the '?' approach, but have a method
> > to explicitly set the mode - to switch to using '$'?
>
> Are you suggesting that we implement something other than what is
> described in these documents for prepared statement parameters?:
>
> http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/sql/PreparedStatement.html
>
>
> http://download.oracle.com/otn-pub/jcp/jdbc-4_1-mrel-spec/jdbc4.1-fr-spec.pdf
>
> If so, I strongly oppose that. If we are not going to deprecate
> use of the question mark character for operators, we need some
> nonstandard hack to our JDBC implementation, but an alternative
> syntax for specifying PreparedStatement and CallableStatement
> parameters seems entirely the wrong way to go.
>
>

> The issue here is what to do about the difficulties in using JDBC
> prepared statements in combination with the PostgreSQL extension of
> operator names containing question marks. Using a double question
> mark is not horrible as a solution.

Actually the issue is what to do about a number of connectors which use a
fairly standard '?' as a placeholder.
Notably absent from the discussion is ODBC upon which JDBC was modelled and
probably predates any use of ? as an operator

It may not be what we would
> have arrived at had the discussion taken place on the pgsql-jdbc
> list rather than underneath a github pull request, but we can
> only move forward from where we are.
>
> possibly, however all of the current JDBC maintainers opined and reached
an agreement on this.

> Out of curiosity, how long has the ?? solution been implemented in
> a driver jar file available as a public download?

At least since February of this year

What are the
> guidelines for what discussion belongs on the pgsql-jdbc list and
> what discussion belongs on github? Is someone interested in
> participating in the discussions leading to decisions about our
> JDBC connector expected to follow both?
>
> Currently pull requests are the easiest to deal with so most discussion is
on github.

I guess updating the JDBC web page would be in order.

Dave Cramer

dave.cramer(at)credativ(dot)ca
http://www.credativ.ca