pgsql: doc: use simpler language for NULL return from ANY/ALL

Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> writes:

doc: use simpler language for NULL return from ANY/ALL
Previously the combination of "does not return" and "any row" caused
ambiguity.

IMO this is not an improvement. It's turned something that read
reasonably well into something that sounds like it was written by
a not very good speaker of English. In particular, the lack of
grammatical matching between the two parts of the sentence is now
quite confusing:

The result is NULL if no comparison with a subquery row returns true,
and it returns NULL for at least one row.

The antecedent of "it" was clear before, and is not now, at least to me.

Maybe you could replace that clause with "..., and at least one comparison
returns NULL."

regards, tom lane

On Fri, Nov 2, 2018 at 10:20:21AM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:

Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> writes:

doc: use simpler language for NULL return from ANY/ALL
Previously the combination of "does not return" and "any row" caused
ambiguity.

IMO this is not an improvement. It's turned something that read
reasonably well into something that sounds like it was written by
a not very good speaker of English. In particular, the lack of
grammatical matching between the two parts of the sentence is now
quite confusing:

The result is NULL if no comparison with a subquery row returns true,
and it returns NULL for at least one row.

The antecedent of "it" was clear before, and is not now, at least to me.

Maybe you could replace that clause with "..., and at least one comparison
returns NULL."

Agreed, done.

--
Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com

+ As you are, so once was I.  As I am, so you will be. +
+                      Ancient Roman grave inscription +