Josh Berkus wrote:
> > Dennis has pointed out that mixing the call-with-named-parameter
> > interface with call-by-order-of-parameters one would cause
> > confusion, and I think it would be OK to disallow this type mixing,
> > so
>
> As we've discussed on IRC, this should be the difference between a
> FUNCTION and a PROCEDURE.
Huh? As far as I can tell, the difference between a function and a
procedure is precisely that the latter doesn't return a value. A
consistent way to specify the parameters of either one would certainly
be highly desirable.
> b) Procedures are not automatically transactional; that is,
> transactions within procedures must/can be explicit. Among other
> things, this would allow procedures to run maintainence tasks.
I certainly want all my maintenance tasks to be transactional. Being
nontransactional is a fuzzy idea anyway. You can't really run anything
without a transaction in PostgreSQL.
--
Peter Eisentraut
http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/