Adding a Column documentation is misleading

On 2019-Nov-06, PG Doc comments form wrote:

Page: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/12/ddl-alter.html
Description:

In 5.6.1. Adding a Column, there is a kind of example 'ALTER TABLE products
ADD COLUMN description text;'

The words 'description' and 'text' are misleading -- as according to the
formal documentation of the SQL command
(https://www.postgresql.org/docs/12/sql-altertable.html), they should be
'column_name' and 'data_type'.

Well, it's an example, so "description" is the column name and "text" is
its data type. If you had a table called products, you could run that
command and it would work just fine (assuming you don't already have a
column called description, doh).

Maybe the example could be made clearer by using some other column name
and some other data type, so that they don't resemble english prose or
keywords. Maybe "alter table cities add column year_founded integer".
Do you want to propose something better than that?

A similar problem exists for removing a column, and other actions.

Let's hear your proposed changes.

--
�lvaro Herrera https://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Remote DBA, Training & Services

On Tuesday, November 5, 2019, PG Doc comments form <noreply@postgresql.org>
wrote:

The following documentation comment has been logged on the website:

Page: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/12/ddl-alter.html
Description:

In 5.6.1. Adding a Column, there is a kind of example 'ALTER TABLE products
ADD COLUMN description text;'

The words 'description' and 'text' are misleading -- as according to the
formal documentation of the SQL command
(https://www.postgresql.org/docs/12/sql-altertable.html), they should be
'column_name' and 'data_type'.

A similar problem exists for removing a column, and other actions.

Chapter 5 is tutorial-like and uses actual meaningful names instead of
syntax placeholders. I don’t really see a problem aside from maybe a
different example name could be chosen. Making it column_name isn’t an
improvement.

David J.

On 07/11/2019 02:13, Alvaro Herrera wrote:

On 2019-Nov-06, PG Doc comments form wrote:

Page: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/12/ddl-alter.html
Description:

In 5.6.1. Adding a Column, there is a kind of example 'ALTER TABLE products
ADD COLUMN description text;'

The words 'description' and 'text' are misleading -- as according to the
formal documentation of the SQL command
(https://www.postgresql.org/docs/12/sql-altertable.html), they should be
'column_name' and 'data_type'.

Well, it's an example, so "description" is the column name and "text" is
its data type. If you had a table called products, you could run that
command and it would work just fine (assuming you don't already have a
column called description, doh).

Maybe the example could be made clearer by using some other column name
and some other data type, so that they don't resemble english prose or
keywords. Maybe "alter table cities add column year_founded integer".
Do you want to propose something better than that?

A similar problem exists for removing a column, and other actions.

Let's hear your proposed changes.

Now it's explained, it is obvious!

Sorry, for the noise.

Cheers,
Gavin