On Mon, 18 Nov 2019 at 11:46, Michael Paquier <michael@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Mon, Nov 18, 2019 at 10:27:24AM +0100, Josef Šimánek wrote: > > This is clear once you understand what does it mean. I was aware of VERBOSE > > option of EXPLAIN and tried to use it without needed parentheses (the same > > way EXPLAIN can understand it). In the parameter list of REINDEX, it is > > still called VERBOSE (not "( VERBOSE )") and there's no info > > that parentheses are needed. [snip] > Mainly historical reasons. REINDEX VERBOSE has been added in 9.5. > EXPLAIN VERBOSE is around since at least 7.1. Using options within > parenthesis is preferred lately because it is much easier to make the > grammar more extensible for future purposes and it eases the option > parsing. All well and good (although personally I think it's arguable whether it's productive to have two different syntaxes for something that in the user's perspective does the same thing). But if the parentheses are part of the parameter, I think putting the parentheses in the parameter list might be a good compromise. Geoff