Re: WIP: a way forward on bootstrap data

On Thu, Apr 26, 2018 at 2:11 AM, Mark Dilger <hornschnorter@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Apr 25, 2018, at 1:31 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
>>
>> Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
>>> On Wed, Apr 25, 2018 at 3:44 PM, Mark Dilger <hornschnorter@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> There still seems to be a lot of boilerplate in the .dat files
>>>> that could be eliminated. ...
>>
>>>> {... typname => 'X', ... typinput => 'Xin', typoutput => 'Xout',
>>>> typreceive => 'Xrecv', typsend => 'Xsend', ... },
>>
>>> -1 for trying to automate this.  It varies between fooin and foo_in,
>>> and it'll be annoying to have to remember which one happens
>>> automatically and which one needs an override.
>>
>> Yeah, that was my first reaction to that example as well.  If it
>> weren't so nearly fifty-fifty then we might have more traction there;
>> but it's pretty close, and actually the foo_in cases outnumber fooin
>> if I counted correctly.  (Array entries should be ignored for this
>> purpose; maybe we'll autogenerate them someday.)
>
> Part of the problem right now is that nothing really encourages new
> functions to be named foo_in vs. fooin, so the nearly 50/50 split will
> continue when new code is contributed.  If the system forced you to
> specify the name when you did it in a nonstandard way, and not otherwise,
> that would have the effect of documenting which way is now considered
> standard.
>

FWIW, I would like some standard naming convention one way or the
other for in/out function names. Looking up pg_type.h for in/out
functions when you know the built-in type name isn't great. But that
itself may not be enough reason to change it.

-- 
Best Wishes,
Ashutosh Bapat
EnterpriseDB Corporation
The Postgres Database Company