Re: last comma inside "CREATE TABLE ()" statements

Tom Lane wrote:
  >Louis-David Mitterrand <vindex@apartia.ch> writes:
  >> Is it against the SQL standard to accept a trailing comma in a table
  >> declaration?
  >
  >Yes ...
  >
  >> CREATE TABLE "currency" (
  >>     currency_id varchar(3),
  >>     rate float, <-------------------- BOOM! parse error
  >> );
  >
  >> As in perl, it would make life easier to simply ignore/accept a trailing
  >> comma on table declarations.
  >
  >... however, this seems like a reasonable idea that would not introduce
  >any major problems.  I have no objections, if someone wants to submit
  >a grammar patch.

I suppose it isn't a major problem, but enforcing strict grammar
helps to show up inadvertent errors.  Suppose I have a set of schema
building files for a whole system; the way I do things, there may be fifty
or more files, one per table.  If one of these gets corrupted in editing
(perhaps a line gets deleted by mistake) it would be nice to know about it
through a parser error. Of course, an error may be such that the parser
won't detect it, but why remove protection by gratuitously departing from
the standard?

--
Oliver Elphick                                Oliver.Elphick@lfix.co.uk
Isle of Wight                              http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver
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