Re: Remove obsolete mention of backslashes as escapes

From: Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us>
To: Laurenz Albe <laurenz(dot)albe(at)cybertec(dot)at>
Cc: pgsql-docs(at)lists(dot)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: Remove obsolete mention of backslashes as escapes
Date: 2023-09-08 21:25:30
Message-ID: ZPuRSrUmkNWaptyS@momjian.us
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Thanks, patch applied back to PG 11.

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On Tue, Apr 11, 2023 at 09:54:11AM +0200, Laurenz Albe wrote:
> The documentation in
> https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/sql-syntax-lexical.html#SQL-SYNTAX-DOLLAR-QUOTING
> says that
>
> "While the standard syntax for specifying string constants is usually convenient,
> it can be difficult to understand when the desired string contains many single
> quotes or backslashes, since each of those must be doubled."
>
> But this has been obsolete ever since version 9.1, when "standard_conforming_strings"
> started to default to "on". It has confused at least one reader:
> https://dba.stackexchange.com/q/325850/176905
>
> So I propose to remove the mention of backslashes there.
>
> Yours,
> Laurenz Albe

> From 282d2dae27524aef37cdafe02e4833894bf5892c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> From: Laurenz Albe <laurenz(dot)albe(at)cybertec(dot)at>
> Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2023 09:48:20 +0200
> Subject: [PATCH] Remove obsolete mention of backslashes as escapes
>
> Since version 9.1, standard_conforming_strings defaults to "on".
> So the remark that backslashes must be doubled has been obsolete
> for a long time and should be removed. It is more confusing than
> helpful by now.
> ---
> doc/src/sgml/syntax.sgml | 2 +-
> 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/syntax.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/syntax.sgml
> index 5668ab0143..3ba844057f 100644
> --- a/doc/src/sgml/syntax.sgml
> +++ b/doc/src/sgml/syntax.sgml
> @@ -555,7 +555,7 @@ U&amp;'d!0061t!+000061' UESCAPE '!'
> <para>
> While the standard syntax for specifying string constants is usually
> convenient, it can be difficult to understand when the desired string
> - contains many single quotes or backslashes, since each of those must
> + contains many single quotes, since each of those must
> be doubled. To allow more readable queries in such situations,
> <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> provides another way, called
> <quote>dollar quoting</quote>, to write string constants.
> --
> 2.39.2
>

--
Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> https://momjian.us
EDB https://enterprisedb.com

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