Re: psql feature thought

Michael Glaesemann <grzm@seespotcode.net> writes:
> What use case are you envisioning? Just saving ... *counts ... 14  
> keystrokes in this case? (I'm not saying there *isn't* a use case. I  
> just don't see a big benefit here.)

Quite aside from the compatibility and how-useful-is-it-really
arguments, I think this'd be a bad idea in the abstract.  SQL is not one
of those languages that assigns semantic significance to the shape of
whitespace [1].  We should NOT introduce any such concept into psql,
because it'd fundamentally break the lexical structure of the language.
To take just one example of the difficulties you'd get into, consider
select 1; select    2; select 3;

How many transactions is that exactly?  And on what grounds are you
deciding?

(No, I don't like python.  Why do you ask? ;-))
        regards, tom lane

[1] Mostly.  There's the infamous continued-string-literal construct...