Re: hstore ==> and deprecate =>

On Sat, Jun 12, 2010 at 1:21 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
> "David E. Wheeler" <david@kineticode.com> writes:
>> Which, IIRC, is new in 9.1, so could in theory be removed, especially if there was an
>>         hstore(text[], text[])
>
> Oh --- now that I look, both that and the hstore => text[] one are new
> in 9.0, which means it is not too late to reverse course.  So at this
> point the proposal is:
>
> * Leave the text => text operator alone for now, but deprecate it,
> and document/recommend the underlying hstore(text,text) function
> instead.
>
> * Get rid of the new text[] => text[] operator altogether, and
> provide/document only the underlying hstore(text[], text[])
> function.
>
> * Rename the new hstore => text[] operator to something else.
> (I'm not quite sold on Florian's & proposal, but don't have a
> better idea to offer offhand.)
>
>
> I notice that in 8.4 and before, the function underlying text => text
> wasn't called hstore() but tconvert().  Which is going to be a serious
> PITA for anyone who wants to write cross-version-compatible SQL using
> hstore.  Can we do anything about this?  I don't think we want to revert
> to calling it tconvert().  Can we retroactively add the alternate name
> hstore() to previous versions, and suggest that people do that manually
> in existing hstore installations?

Here's a patch that removes the text[] => text[] operator - as
suggested above - and instead documents hstore(text[], text[]).
Barring objections, I will commit this and then start looking at the
other portions of this proposal.

--
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise Postgres Company