Re: pl/pgsql feature request: shorthand for argument and local variable references

Personally in your example I very much like notation "update_item.id", because there is a clean signal so "id" is the function's argument. When you use "$id", then it is not clean if "id" is a local variable or function's argument. So your proposal decreases safety :-/. Plus this syntax reduces collision only on one side, you should use aliases for sql identifiers and again it is not balanced - In MS SQL I can write predicate id = @id. But it is not possible in your proposal (and it is not possible from compatibility reasons ever).

More we already has a possibility to do ALIAS of any variable https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/plpgsql-declarations.html#PLPGSQL-DECLARATION-ALIAS

I understand that there can be problems with functions with very long names.

So I think introducing new syntax is not necessary. The open question is a possibility to do aliasing more comfortably. ADA language has a possibility to rename function or procedure. But it is much more stronger, than can be implemented in plpgsql. Probably the most easy implementation can be a possibility to specify a new argument's label with already supported #option syntax.

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION very_long_name(par1 int)

RETURNS int AS $$

#routine_label lnm

BEGIN

  RAISE NOTICE '%', lnm.par1;