> I'm -1 on the chosen syntax; :name: shadows common variable > substitution patterns including those of psql.
I'll consider using one of the other special characters. Do you have any suggestions?
The R language uses %...% to denote custom operators.
That would be a bit annoying for dynamic SQL using format though...
Do we have to choose? There are 15 allowed characters for operator names presently (aside from + and -), could we define the rule that an operator name can contain any sequence of alphabetic+underscore+space? characters so long as the first and last symbol of the operator name is one of those 15 characters?
Another appealing option would be the non-matching but complementary pair <...> (I'd consider removing these from the 15 choices in we go that route)
SELECT 1 <add> 2;
I would probably avoid requiring back-ticks given their usage as identifier quoting in other systems - probably remove it from the 15 choices if we go that route.