Re: patch: to_string, to_array functions

From: Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>
To: Merlin Moncure <mmoncure(at)gmail(dot)com>
Cc: Brendan Jurd <direvus(at)gmail(dot)com>, Pavel Stehule <pavel(dot)stehule(at)gmail(dot)com>, Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com>, Itagaki Takahiro <itagaki(dot)takahiro(at)gmail(dot)com>, PostgreSQL Hackers <pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Re: patch: to_string, to_array functions
Date: 2010-08-09 20:34:16
Message-ID: 13636.1281386056@sss.pgh.pa.us
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Merlin Moncure <mmoncure(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> Is there any reason why array functions need the type prefix when
> other type conversion functions don't? Why didn't we name unnest()
> array_unnest()?

UNNEST() is in the standard, IIRC, so you'd have to ask the SQL
committee that. (And no, they're not exactly being consistent either,
see array_agg() for example.)

But anyway, my point here is that these functions are close enough to
the existing string_to_array/array_to_string functions that they should
be presented as variants of those, not arbitrarily assigned unrelated
new names. Whether we'd have chosen different names if we had it to do
over is academic.

regards, tom lane

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