"David G. Johnston" <david.g.johns...@gmail.com> writes: > On Mon, Jan 23, 2017 at 11:16 AM, Fabien COELHO <coe...@cri.ensmp.fr> wrote: >> Currently the value of a non existing psql-variable is... its own >> reference:-( >> >> psql> \echo :x >> :x >> >> I'm not sure of the rational, apart from the probable lexer implementation >> point of view. Maybe an empty string or 0 or some configurable value would >> provide better alternative.
> The fundamental problem is that: > SELECT 'testing' AS ":tablename" > is perfectly valid SQL code. Yeah, but psql does know not to try to resolve :something inside a quoted literal or identifier. The actual problem is with constructs like SELECT somearray[lower:upper] FROM ... If the user is thinking that's an array subscript not a variable reference, we don't want to break their query when we don't even have a useful thing to contribute. Back in the day, PG allowed ":" as a generic operator name, making this even worse; but I think the only remaining SQL syntax that could include a colon is array slicing. regards, tom lane -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers