Re: features required for SQL 92 conformance

neilc@samurai.com (Neil Conway) wrote:
> Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> writes:
>> Damn, yeah, you're right.  Neil was going to code something so that
>> "WITH UPDATE" would automatically translate into the creation of 2-3
>> rules.  But he got distracted ...
>
> Indeed, the tragedy of being unable to work on PG full time :-)
>
> But it hardly matters to the subject at hand: as I mentioned on IRC,
> AFAIK there is *plenty* of stuff in SQL92 we don't support.

SQL 92 has multiple "levels," and I don't think anyone has gotten
faintly close to supporting every aspect of the higher levels.

- "Entry level" is rudimentary enough that systems that barely feign
  SQL compliance can often comply with it;

- "Transitional level" and "Intermediate level" add in a pretty wide
  set of features, _most_ of which are things PostgreSQL supports;

- "Full SQL92" has features that definitely aren't widely supported,
  although there certainly are some supported by PostgreSQL.

PostgreSQL probably sits somewhere between Transitional and
Intermediate levels, but in some ways, it's a bit irrelevant, as even
if it covered all of particular levels, the NIST organization that
used to be responsible for validating claims of standards conformance
was disbanded back in the '90s.

Claims of "conformance" are a bit specious when there isn't much of a
standards body on this anymore.  And vendors that consider themselves
commercially important are quite prepared to ignore standards whenever
it seems convenient.
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