Typo/wording on https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/catalog-pg-class.html

On 20 Sep 2023, at 07:23, PG Doc comments form <noreply@postgresql.org> wrote:

The following documentation comment has been logged on the website:

Page: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/16/catalog-pg-class.html
Description:

I've just read this:

"catalogs tables and most everything else that has columns or is otherwise
similar to a table"

It seems that it should be:

"catalogs tables and almost everything else that has columns or is otherwise
similar to a table"

So, "most" becomes "almost".

While I'm not a native english speaker I do believe this wording is correct
(although I guess your version would be semantically the same or very close to
it). It was done in commit 83501ef4ca some 20+ years ago.

--
Daniel Gustafsson

Daniel Gustafsson <daniel@yesql.se> writes:

On 20 Sep 2023, at 07:23, PG Doc comments form <noreply@postgresql.org> wrote:
I've just read this:
"catalogs tables and most everything else that has columns or is otherwise
similar to a table"
It seems that it should be:
"catalogs tables and almost everything else that has columns or is otherwise
similar to a table"

While I'm not a native english speaker I do believe this wording is correct
(although I guess your version would be semantically the same or very close to
it). It was done in commit 83501ef4ca some 20+ years ago.

"Most" here is good English, although I concede it's a slightly
old-fashioned usage. Maybe it'd be clearer to just remove the
word altogether.

If we were going to touch this sentence I'd worry about some other
things too. Use of "catalogs" as a verb is probably not the greatest
choice right here, since one could easily think that the verb is
missing and what was meant was "pg_class lists catalogs, [user]
tables, and ...". Also, I think that the reference to special
relations is obsolete --- we don't list any relkind for that anymore.
What probably does deserve to be called out in place of those is
composite types, since their appearance in pg_class might be pretty
surprising to newbies.

regards, tom lane

I wrote:

"Most" here is good English, although I concede it's a slightly
old-fashioned usage. Maybe it'd be clearer to just remove the
word altogether.

If we were going to touch this sentence I'd worry about some other
things too. Use of "catalogs" as a verb is probably not the greatest
choice right here, since one could easily think that the verb is
missing and what was meant was "pg_class lists catalogs, [user]
tables, and ...". Also, I think that the reference to special
relations is obsolete --- we don't list any relkind for that anymore.
What probably does deserve to be called out in place of those is
composite types, since their appearance in pg_class might be pretty
surprising to newbies.

Hmm, I must have been looking at some old version of the docs, because
when I went to prepare a draft patch I found that those last couple of
points were addressed some time ago. I think we just need some slightly
better wording here rather than any change of technical content.
I propose the attached. (I also modified the para's last sentence to
speak of "kind" not "type", for consistency with the relkind field name
and the rest of the para.)

regards, tom lane

On 22 Sep 2023, at 19:04, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:

I wrote:

"Most" here is good English, although I concede it's a slightly
old-fashioned usage. Maybe it'd be clearer to just remove the
word altogether.

If we were going to touch this sentence I'd worry about some other
things too. Use of "catalogs" as a verb is probably not the greatest
choice right here, since one could easily think that the verb is
missing and what was meant was "pg_class lists catalogs, [user]
tables, and ...". Also, I think that the reference to special
relations is obsolete --- we don't list any relkind for that anymore.
What probably does deserve to be called out in place of those is
composite types, since their appearance in pg_class might be pretty
surprising to newbies.

Hmm, I must have been looking at some old version of the docs, because
when I went to prepare a draft patch I found that those last couple of
points were addressed some time ago. I think we just need some slightly
better wording here rather than any change of technical content.
I propose the attached. (I also modified the para's last sentence to
speak of "kind" not "type", for consistency with the relkind field name
and the rest of the para.)

LGTM.

--
Daniel Gustafsson

Daniel Gustafsson <daniel@yesql.se> writes:

On 22 Sep 2023, at 19:04, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
I propose the attached. (I also modified the para's last sentence to
speak of "kind" not "type", for consistency with the relkind field name
and the rest of the para.)

LGTM.

Pushed, thanks for looking.

regards, tom lane