At 12:00 PM 1/24/00 +0100, Zeugswetter Andreas SB wrote:

>IMHO, if there exists a from clause, we could insist,
>that all tables are listed (no implicitly added table),
>since it is really too error prone.
>
>What I would not like to see removed is the ability to 
>avoid the from clause alltogether. Like in:
>
>select xor.eval;

Yeah...in porting the arsDigita Community System over from 
Oracle, we created a dummy table called "dual" because of
the clunky Oracle-ism involving that table.

In other words, in Oracle you can't say:

select sydate();

because you must have a "from" clause.  By convention you
use a dummy built-in table called "dual" which has one row:

select sysdate() from dual;

Ugh.  I agree that being able to exclude the from clause
altogether is nice.



- Don Baccus, Portland OR <dhogaza@pacifier.com>
  Nature photos, on-line guides, Pacific Northwest
  Rare Bird Alert Service and other goodies at
  http://donb.photo.net.

Mon, 24 Jan 2000 10:56:05 -0800
Don Baccus <dhogaza@pacifier.com>
Re: [HACKERS] column aliases 
> At 12:00 PM 1/24/00 +0100, Zeugswetter Andreas SB wrote:
> 
> >IMHO, if there exists a from clause, we could insist,
> >that all tables are listed (no implicitly added table),
> >since it is really too error prone.
> >
> >What I would not like to see removed is the ability to 
> >avoid the from clause alltogether. Like in:
> >
> >select xor.eval;
> 
> Yeah...in porting the arsDigita Community System over from 
> Oracle, we created a dummy table called "dual" because of
> the clunky Oracle-ism involving that table.
> 
> In other words, in Oracle you can't say:
> 
> select sydate();
> 
> because you must have a "from" clause.  By convention you
> use a dummy built-in table called "dual" which has one row:
> 
> select sysdate() from dual;
> 
> Ugh.  I agree that being able to exclude the from clause
> altogether is nice.

Yes, with INFORMIX, we use 'tab1' as a one-row table.

The cool part is SELECT pg_class.* is the same as SELECT * FROM
pg_class.


-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://www.op.net/~candle
  pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 853-3000
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

Mon, 24 Jan 2000 14:29:29 -0500 (EST)
Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us>
Re: [HACKERS] column aliases