Re: ('dog$house' = quote_ident('dog$house')) is surprisingly FALSE

On Fri, Oct 7, 2022 at 5:16 PM Bryn Llewellyn <bryn(at)yugabyte(dot)com> wrote:

> david(dot)g(dot)johnston(at)gmail(dot)com wrote:
>
> bryn(at)yugabyte(dot)com wrote:
>
> (3) The PG doc on quote_ident says this in large friendly letters:
>
> Quotes are added only if necessary…
>
>
> Notice "only". I now know that this is very much not the case. You can
> compose an effectively unlimited number of different examples along these
> lines:
>
>
>
> *select quote_ident('redaktør'); → "redaktør"create table redaktør(n int);
> → table successfully created*
>
>
> Yep, and that is precisely what would make for a good bug report. Pointing
> out that "if necessary" does not indeed match up with the behavior. I
> suspect it is likely to get changed - everything else being discussed just
> detracts attention from it.
>
>
> **BRIEFLY**
>
> What does "make for a good bug report" mean, David? Is it:
>
> (1.1) You, David, or somebody else who has been officially recognized as a
> PG Contributor (https://www.postgresql.org/community/contributors/) will
> file the bug, granting it credibility with their imprimatur?
>
>
The research, evidence, and argument should be able to stand on their own.
With those qualities it doesn't really matter too much the reputation of
the person filing.

> or (1.2) I, Bryn, should file the bug.
>

I was providing some suggested wording for how your original email could
have been written as a simple bug report. And I definitely encourage
people to take the time to consider and write good bug reports - while I do
try and provide a community service in either writing or responding to such
reports I am quite happy focusing on the later.

>
> About "I suspect it is likely to get changed", do you mean:
>
> (2.1) Change the doc to match quote_ident's current, unpredictable,
> behavior? (By all means, substitute "hard to describe accurately,
> precisely, and yet still tersely" for "unpredictable".)
>

The documentation would be my expectation, but the report doesn't need to
presuppose either outcome, just point out the inconsistency.

> (2.2) Change quote_ident's implementation—and then write new doc to
> describe the new behavior precisely and accurately? And for this option,
> the next question is "What's the spec of the changed implementation?"
>
> Notice that the issue is broader than just quote_ident, as this test shows:
>
>
Then add that to the report - they do indeed seem to be of a similar
nature. If they weren't, then you'd have two bug reports.

I’m not convinced. The discussion has shown that some people are somewhat
> confused. For example, it was suggested that a name like this:
>
>
The follow-on conversation was likely to happen once the "why" of the
inconsistency started to be discussed.

> Compare this with the implementation that I thought, at first, that I
> could use when I simply believed the doc. (The subject line of this thread
> hits at the trivial SQL statement that would implement the "language SQL"
> function.) ANd if that's all there is to it, then when not ship is as a
> built-in?
>

I just suggest you separate straight-forward seeming bugs from
philosophical discussions. This was a good example of a situation that was
simple enough to be a bug - whether the docs or code get changed is what
the bug report follow-up from the community is meant to work out.

David J.