Re: proposal: plpgsql pragma statement

On Tue, Dec 4, 2018 at 12:13 PM Pavel Stehule <pavel.stehule@gmail.com> wrote:
> I wrote plpgsql_check https://github.com/okbob/plpgsql_check.
>
> It is working well, but because it does static analyse only, sometimes it can produces false alarms or it should to
stopa analyse, because there are not necessary data.
 
>
> https://github.com/okbob/plpgsql_check/issues/36
>
> I see one possible solution in introduction of pragma statement with syntax:
>
>   PRAGMA keyword [content to semicolon];
>
> The pragma has a relation to following statement. So the issue 36 can be solved by pragma
>
> PRAGMA cmdtype CREATE;
> EXECUTE format('CREATE TABLE xxx ...
>
> The PRAGMA statement does nothing in runtime. It works only in compile time, and add a pair of key, value to next non
pragmastatement. This information can be used by some plpgsql extensions.
 
>
> What do you think about this proposal?

I think it's commandeering PRAGMA for a fairly narrow purpose.  It's
hardly unimaginable that someone in future might want a PRAGMA that
does change runtime behavior, or that affects something other than the
statement which immediately follows.

I don't see a big problem allowing some kind of annotation that
plpgsql_check can easily access, and I don't even mind it being called
PRAGMA.  But I don't think it should foreclose unrelated uses of
PRAGMA which somebody might want to introduce in the future.

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