Re: 16 parameter limit

Tom,

> I was surprised that people were dissatisfied with 16 (it was 8 not
>  very
> long ago...).  Needing more strikes me as a symptom of either bad
>  coding
> practices or missing features of other sorts.

No, not really.  It's just people wanting to use PL/pgSQL procedures asdata filters.  For example, I have a database
withcomplexdependancies and validation rules that I started under 7.0.3, whenRULES were not an option for such things
andtriggers were harder towrite.  As a result, I have the interface push new records for, say,the CLIENTS table through
aPL/pgSQL procedure rather than writing tothe table directly.  Since the table has 18 columns, I need (18 + 2for
session& user) 20 parameters for this procedure.  
 

As John has discussed, this kind of data structure is relatively commonin both Oracle and Informix shops.  As such,
Postgresemulating thisability allows DBAs from those worlds to consider moving to Postgresand RHDB.   While the same
kindof business logic can be implementedthrough Rules and Triggers, the Postgres structure for these things isunique
andas a result not very portable.
 

-Josh Berkus



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