-----Original Message----- From: pgsql-general-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:pgsql-general-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ralph Graulich Sent: Friday, January 20, 2012 12:28 PM To: pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: comments in argument list of plpgsql get stripped? Hi, How can I store inline comments in the argument list of a plpgsql function to document complex overloaded functions with lots of arguments? It seems that PostgreSQL accepts the comments, but strips them as the function gets stored. I am using PostgreSQL 9.1.2. +++ CREATE FUNCTION func_test( -- comment for argument 1 -- quite longish, explaining the details argument1 TEXT -- comment for argument 2 -- even more information , argument2 TEXT ) RETURNS smallint AS $BODY$ BEGIN -- this comment gets stored correctly RETURN 1; END; $BODY$ LANGUAGE plpgsql IMMUTABLE COST 100; +++ According to the server log file PostgreSQL gets sent all the comments correctly, so it is not the client that already strips the comments. +++ [...] statement: CREATE FUNCTION func_test( -- comment for argument 1 -- quite longish, explaining the details argument1 TEXT -- comment for argument 2 -- even more information , argument2 TEXT ) RETURNS smallint AS $BODY$ BEGIN -- this comment gets stored correctly RETURN 1; END; $BODY$ LANGUAGE plpgsql IMMUTABLE COST 100; +++ select func_test('foo', 'bar'); func_test ----------- 1 (1 row) Best regards, Ralph ------------------------------------------------------------------ Ralph, The fact that you can write comments in the middle of the arguments in an artifact of the parser and likely there is not reasonable way to get them to persist. You either want to use "COMMENT ON" like Raymond said or you can simply move the comments into the body of the function. The relevant table that stores the function stores everything except the body as individual fields so that it can facilitate dependency tracking and type verification, etc... In order to do this the input needs to be stripped of all comments and newlines/control-characters so that only syntactically meaningful content remains. The fundamental issue is that the input arguments to a function are stored as an array on pg_proc and thus to do not have their own OID with which to link onto pg_description. The fundamental question is by what means do you expect to be able to view and/or modify these comments? Feel free to provide thoughts and suggestions regarding how core could be modified to fit your intended use-case but I would offer that unless you are willing to fund and/or do the work that it isn't going to get much attention due apparent need to modify the catalogs and introduce a total new way of dealing with comments. It is not the current policy of PostgreSQL to capture and store original DDL but instead it parsers the DDL into the needed catalog entries and then recombines the entries into a "normalized" form when necessary (e.g., for pg_dump). David J. -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
