BUG #14500: error message displays "schema dot relation" in double quotes all together

On Tue, Jan 17, 2017 at 4:09 AM, <vodevsh@gmail.com> wrote:

The following bug has been logged on the website:

Bug reference: 14500
Logged by: Vladimir Svedov
Email address: vodevsh@gmail.com
PostgreSQL version: 9.6.1
Operating system: Linux
Description:

Hi,
I'm not sure if it's a bug or feature, but I find error message misleading.
ERROR: relation [“schema_name.table_name”] does not exist gives an
impression that schema name is part of relation name. Should not it be
ERROR: relation [“schema name”].["table_name"] does not exist instead? I
doubt it's a bug, because this message seems version not specific. But does
not it look wrong?

​I see the confusion but supposedly you'd have to write your alternate
version:

relation ""schema_name"."table_name"" does not exist - and the excess of
quotes in that situation would be problematic.

More to the point, the double quotes are not part of the identifiers but
rather offset the item being named from the rest of the sentence fragment.
​The portion within the quotes is case-sensitive and reflects that value
being looked up after any case-folding happens.

Its definitely not a bug and doesn't seem like something that would be
worth it to change.

David J.

On Tue, Jan 17, 2017 at 5:09 AM, <vodevsh@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm not sure if it's a bug or feature, but I find error message misleading.
ERROR: relation [“schema_name.table_name”] does not exist gives an
impression that schema name is part of relation name. Should not it be
ERROR: relation [“schema name”].["table_name"] does not exist instead? I
doubt it's a bug, because this message seems version not specific. But does
not it look wrong?

I doubt that it can really be considered a bug, since it is
functioning as designed.

On the other hand, it's annoying for copy/paste, especially with camel
case names.

--
Kevin Grittner
EDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

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Thank you for the reply!
I understand that double quotes here do not mean a relation exact name, but
rather identify the object in general.
Yet, look at this sample:

t=# select * from public."Mixed.Case";
ERROR: * relation "public.Mixed.Case" *does not exist
LINE 1: select * from public."Mixed.Case";
^

2017-01-17 15:19 GMT+00:00 David G. Johnston <david.g.johnston@gmail.com>:

On Tue, Jan 17, 2017 at 8:24 AM, Kevin Grittner <kgrittn@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tue, Jan 17, 2017 at 5:09 AM, <vodevsh@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm not sure if it's a bug or feature, but I find error message

misleading.

ERROR: relation [“schema_name.table_name”] does not exist gives an
impression that schema name is part of relation name. Should not it be
ERROR: relation [“schema name”].["table_name"] does not exist instead? I
doubt it's a bug, because this message seems version not specific. But

does

not it look wrong?

I doubt that it can really be considered a bug, since it is
functioning as designed.

On the other hand, it's annoying for copy/paste, especially with camel
case names.

​While I don't disagree for the examples I've seen​ you would just copy
from the LINE 1 of context...

David J.

"David G. Johnston" <david.g.johnston@gmail.com> writes:

On Tue, Jan 17, 2017 at 4:09 AM, <vodevsh@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm not sure if it's a bug or feature, but I find error message misleading.
ERROR: relation [“schema_name.table_name”] does not exist gives an
impression that schema name is part of relation name. Should not it be
ERROR: relation [“schema name”].["table_name"] does not exist instead? I
doubt it's a bug, because this message seems version not specific. But does
not it look wrong?

More to the point, the double quotes are not part of the identifiers but
rather offset the item being named from the rest of the sentence fragment.

Yes. In a translated message you might see something like

Relation »schema_name.table_name« existiert nicht

That is, the double quotes here are not SQL syntax but part of the human
language that the error message is written in. It's unfortunate in this
context that SQL's identifier quoting character is the same as we use in
English, because it invites confusion like the OP's. But the only way
to fix that would be to go over to non-ASCII quoting characters (curly
quotes, say) in the English message texts, and that would create tons of
practical problems. Plus, if you didn't look closely enough to see the
difference between curly quotes and plain double quotes, you'd still
be confused.

regards, tom lane

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Only because when I get the error, I look closely the error message, not to
the code I just entered.
In fact I noticed error message and LINE 1 have different quoting only when
you told me.

Thank again for your time

2017-01-17 15:33 GMT+00:00 David G. Johnston <david.g.johnston@gmail.com>:

As David pointed I can use my line with error pointer for copy/paste ugly
names, not the error message.
Thank you for you time!

2017-01-17 15:35 GMT+00:00 Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>: