doc: Clarify status of SELECT INTO on reference page

The documentation as well as source code comments weren't entirely
clear whether SELECT INTO was truly deprecated (thus in theory
destined to be removed eventually), or just a less recommended
variant.  After discussion, it appears that other implementations also
use SELECT INTO in direct SQL in a way similar to PostgreSQL, so it
seems worth keeping it for compatibility.  Update the language in the
documentation to that effect.

Discussion: https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/flat/96dc0df3-e13a-a85d-d045-d6e2c85218da%40enterprisedb.com
This commit is contained in:
Peter Eisentraut 2021-01-30 11:05:15 +01:00
parent 6aaaa76bb4
commit 6533062244
1 changed files with 5 additions and 3 deletions

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@ -138,9 +138,11 @@ SELECT * INTO films_recent FROM films WHERE date_prod >= '2002-01-01';
in <application>ECPG</application> (see <xref linkend="ecpg"/>) and
<application>PL/pgSQL</application> (see <xref linkend="plpgsql"/>).
The <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> usage of <command>SELECT
INTO</command> to represent table creation is historical. It is
best to use <command>CREATE TABLE AS</command> for this purpose in
new code.
INTO</command> to represent table creation is historical. Some other SQL
implementations also use <command>SELECT INTO</command> in this way (but
most SQL implementations support <command>CREATE TABLE AS</command>
instead). Apart from such compatibility considerations, it is best to use
<command>CREATE TABLE AS</command> for this purpose in new code.
</para>
</refsect1>