Re: [Bulk] Re: quoted identifier behaviour

From: Randall Smith <randall(at)tnr(dot)cc>
To: pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: [Bulk] Re: quoted identifier behaviour
Date: 2007-03-15 00:59:26
Message-ID: eta5qe$jmq$1@sea.gmane.org
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Alvaro Herrera wrote:
> Randall Smith wrote:
>> Scott Marlowe wrote:
>>> This whole discussion is reminding me of one of my personal mantras, and
>>> that is that relying on "artifacts" of behaviour is generally a bad
>>> idea.
>>>
>>> For instance, many databases accept != for not equal, but the sql
>>> standard quite clearly says it's <>.
>>>
>>> If you're relying on case folding meaning that you don't have to
>>> consistently use the same capitalization when referring to variables,
>>> table names, people, or anything else, you're asking for trouble down
>>> the line, and for little or no real gain today.
>>>
>>> I know that a lot of times we are stuck with some commercial package
>>> that we can't do anything to fix, so I'm not aiming this comment at the
>>> average dba, but at the developer.
>> Yea, this is a commercial package, but it's actually doing it right.
>> Since it doesn't know how a user will name a table or column, it always
>> calls them as quoted strings in upper case which is standards compliant,
>> but doesn't work with PG. So if a user names a table 55 and mine, it
>> calls "55 AND MINE" and for foo, it calls "FOO". Looks like they did it
>> right to me.
>
> So what's the problem? Just create the tables as all uppercase and you
> should be fine, since the application must be systematic about quoting.
>

The toolkit uses quoted identifiers and the application doesn't. I have
a solution, which is to use views, but this thread is now about whether
or not Postgresql should and will support the current SQL standard,
which is to convert non-quoted identifiers to upper case. Postgresql
converts them to lower case and that is the issue. Since posting this
thread I've found this topic hashed out before in pgsql-hackers (thanks
Tom).

Randall

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