Michael Glaesemann wrote: > > On Aug 23, 2007, at 14:25 , Tom Lane wrote: > >> Josh Berkus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >>> I just don't see the ability to omit the alias in a query with only one >>> subquery (the only circumstances under which it would be safe to do so) >>> as >>> any significant gain in fuctionality. >> >> Why do you think it'd be restricted to only one subquery? >> >> As long as you take care that the subquery's column names don't match >> any other ones in the query, you don't *need* an alias for it --- >> there'll be no need to qualify the column names. This extends just >> fine to multiple subqueries. > > How about something like gensym? One alias you could always use and be > guaranteed it would give a unique value. Still provide the alias, but don't > have to think about name collisions.
It is dangerous to provide a synthetic name; if the standard ever gets modified to support alias-less subqueries, they would likely choose a different name-generating algorithm, and we would have a backward-compatibility problem. Or is that a backwards-compatibility problem? I remain unsure. -- Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/ PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 7: You can help support the PostgreSQL project by donating at http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate