Re: PL/pgSQL 2

On 09/02/2014 12:12 PM, Joel Jacobson wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 6:03 PM, Heikki Linnakangas
> <hlinnakangas@vmware.com> wrote:
>> I think that would actually be a good way to enforce the rule that an UPDATE
>> only updates a single row. Just put a "ASSERT ROW_COUNT=1;" after the
>> update.
> So instead of one line of code, I would need to write two lines of
> code at almost *all* places where a currently have an UPDATE. :-(
> In that case, I think "RETURNING TRUE INTO STRICT _OK" is less ugly.
>
> I think the problem with my perspective is my ambitions. I use
> PL/pgSQL not as a secondary language, but it's my primary language for
> developing applications.
> For me, updating a row, is like setting a variable in a normal language.
> No normal language would require two rows to set a variable.
> It would be like having to do:
>     my $var = 10;
>     die unless $var == 10;
> in Perl to set a variable.
>
>



That's really a problem with your perspective. UPDATE is inherently set 
oriented. It's emphatically NOT like setting a single variable.

I must have written tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of lines of 
plpgsql, and this have never ever been a problem for me.

I'd be very opposed to adding some special new plpgsql-only syntax to 
have UPDATE or DELETE error out if they affected more than a single row. 
And as you and others have observed, you can do that now with the 
"RETURNING true INTO STRICT ok" trick.

cheers

andrew