Re: Proposal: plpgsql - "for in array" statement

On 09/28/2010 09:43 PM, Darren Duncan wrote:
> Alvaro Herrera wrote:
>> What about
>>
>> FOR EACH var IN array_expr LOOP ...
>>
>> I think this requires reserving EACH, which could cause a regression for
>> working code.  Maybe there's a way to make it work?
>
> What about saying FOR-EACH instead?
>
> A good general solution that I'd expect to not cause regressions is to 
> separate multiple-word keywords with dashes rather than spaces.
>
> Since unquoted identifiers don't have dashes, I think, and moreover 
> because the whole FOR-EACH would occupy the first position of the 
> statement rather than the first two, there should be no ambiguity.
>
> Parsing should be easier, too, because keywords formatted like this 
> would just be a single term rather than having infinite variations due 
> to embedded whitespace.

This would actually make the parsing infinitely more ugly, not less. And 
we are not gong to start introducing non-alphabetic characters into 
keywords. It is also, as Tom noted about the earlier version, without 
any obvious connection to array processing.

cheers

andrew