Re: [HACKERS] Enhancing PGSQL to be compatible with Informix SQL

On Thu, 6 Jan 2000, Bruce Momjian wrote:

> > I've been wanting outer joins, but in my porting efforts have managed
> > to work around them without too much difficulty, even though 6.5's
> > limitations on subselects (not in target lists) requires that I
> > create PL/pgSQL functions in some cases.
> > 
> > I certainly can't speak for the majority of users, but as one data
> > point I'd personally rather see outer joins done right (SQL 92
> > syntax) and wait a bit.
> > 
> > Then again, I tend to be a bit of a language purist...
> > 
> 
> Thomas has tried to explain the ANSI syntax for outer joins, and I must
> say I am quite confused by it.  A simple OUTER added before the column
> name would be a quick and simple way to do outers, perhap get them into
> 7.0, and allow new users to do outers without having to learn the quite
> complex ANSI syntax.
> 
> At least that was my idea.

First, I'm for getting OUTER JOINs in ASAP...but, I'm a little concerned
with thought of throwing in what *sounds* like a 'stop gap' measure...

Just to clarify..."A simple OUTER added before the column" would be a
PostgreSQL-ism?  Sort of like Oracle and all the rest have their own
special traits?  Eventually, the plan is to implement OJs as "SQL92 spec",
and leave our -ism in for backwards compatibility?

Marc G. Fournier                   ICQ#7615664               IRC Nick: Scrappy
Systems Administrator @ hub.org 
primary: scrappy@hub.org           secondary: scrappy@{freebsd|postgresql}.org