Re: Possible to run the server with ANSI/ISO string escapeing

> Does anyone know if it will be possible to run the server with ANSI/ISO
> string escaping instead of C-style escapes? The C style escaping is a
> shoot-down for our adoption of postgres, since its non-standard.
> 
> 
> Not yet, but we have a TODO item:
> 
>         * Allow backslash handling in quoted strings to be disabled for
>           portability
> 
>           The use of C-style backslashes (.e.g. \n, \r) in quoted strings is not
>           SQL-spec compliant, so allow such handling to be disabled.
> 
> Uh, what is ANSI/ISO escaping actually?  I assume you mean only supporting
> '' for literal quotes rather than \' too.
> 
> Yes Sir. Being able to disable the backslash-escaping is the desired
> operation. In circles of business deciding wether to move to opensource
> databases this is the silently used excuse (by the critics) to dismiss
> pg since its arguably so fundamental and somewhat dangerous (data loss).
> Getting pg to behave 'normally' would silence this excuse. Is there
> anything I can do to help move this up the todo list?

Uh, yea, this is going to require quite a bit of discussion in the
group, and I am concerned how it will affect other apps using
PostgreSQL.  (The mode isn't going to be useful if it breaks plug-in
extensions and stuff.)

I think COPY is always going to need to use backslashes.  There is no
other good way to handle special characters and stuff, but I don't see
people complaining that has to be portable.

I think most of it is done in parser/scan.l if you want to hack in there
and get a test implementation working and send in a patch.  We can work
on the infrastructure to turn it on and off.

--
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 359-1001
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  13 Roberts Road
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073