Go to file
Tom Lane 7c850320d8 Fix SQL-style substring() to have spec-compliant greediness behavior.
SQL's regular-expression substring() function is defined to have a
pattern argument that's separated into three subpatterns by escape-
double-quote markers; the function result is the part of the input
matching the second subpattern.  The standard makes it clear that
if there is ambiguity about how to match the input to the subpatterns,
the first and third subpatterns should be taken to match the smallest
possible amount of text (i.e., they're "non greedy", in the terms of
our regex code).  We were not doing it that way: the first subpattern
would eat the largest possible amount of text, causing the function
result to be shorter than what the spec requires.

Fix that by attaching explicit greediness quantifiers to the
subpatterns.  (This depends on the regex fix in commit 8a29ed053;
before that, this didn't reliably change the regex engine's behavior.)

Also, by adding parentheses around each subpattern, we ensure that
"|" (OR) in the subpatterns behave sanely.  Previously, "|" in the
first or third subpatterns didn't work.

This patch also makes the function throw error if you write more than
two escape-double-quote markers, and do something sane if you write
just one, and document that behavior.  Previously, an odd number of
markers led to a confusing complaint about unbalanced parentheses,
while extra pairs of markers were just ignored.  (Note that the spec
requires exactly two markers, but we've historically allowed there
to be none, and this patch preserves the old behavior for that case.)

In passing, adjust some substring() test cases that didn't really
prove what they said they were testing for: they used patterns
that didn't match the data string, so that the output would be
NULL whether or not the function was really strict.

Although this is certainly a bug fix, changing the behavior in back
branches seems undesirable: applications could perhaps be depending on
the old behavior, since it's not obviously wrong unless you read the
spec very closely.  Hence, no back-patch.

Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/5bb27a41-350d-37bf-901e-9d26f5592dd0@charter.net
2019-05-14 11:27:31 -04:00
config Update config.guess and config.sub 2019-04-27 14:25:00 +02:00
contrib Standardize ItemIdData terminology. 2019-05-13 15:53:39 -07:00
doc Fix SQL-style substring() to have spec-compliant greediness behavior. 2019-05-14 11:27:31 -04:00
src Fix SQL-style substring() to have spec-compliant greediness behavior. 2019-05-14 11:27:31 -04:00
.dir-locals.el Make Emacs perl-mode indent more like perltidy. 2019-01-13 11:32:31 -08:00
.gitattributes doc: Add some images 2019-03-27 23:10:23 +01:00
.gitignore Support for optimizing and emitting code in LLVM JIT provider. 2018-03-22 11:05:22 -07:00
aclocal.m4 Fix configure's AC_CHECK_DECLS tests to work correctly with clang. 2018-11-19 12:01:47 -05:00
configure Reorder configure tests for accept() in Windows 2019-03-04 14:42:12 -05:00
configure.in Fix PERMIT_DECLARATION_AFTER_STATEMENT initialization. 2019-02-16 13:12:28 -08:00
COPYRIGHT Update copyright for 2019 2019-01-02 12:44:25 -05:00
GNUmakefile.in Process EXTRA_INSTALL serially, during the first temp-install. 2018-12-31 13:54:38 -08:00
HISTORY Change documentation references to PG website to use https: not http: 2017-05-20 21:50:47 -04:00
Makefile Fix non-GNU makefiles for AIX make. 2017-11-30 00:57:22 -08:00
README Change documentation references to PG website to use https: not http: 2017-05-20 21:50:47 -04:00
README.git Change documentation references to PG website to use https: not http: 2017-05-20 21:50:47 -04:00

PostgreSQL Database Management System
=====================================

This directory contains the source code distribution of the PostgreSQL
database management system.

PostgreSQL is an advanced object-relational database management system
that supports an extended subset of the SQL standard, including
transactions, foreign keys, subqueries, triggers, user-defined types
and functions.  This distribution also contains C language bindings.

PostgreSQL has many language interfaces, many of which are listed here:

	https://www.postgresql.org/download

See the file INSTALL for instructions on how to build and install
PostgreSQL.  That file also lists supported operating systems and
hardware platforms and contains information regarding any other
software packages that are required to build or run the PostgreSQL
system.  Copyright and license information can be found in the
file COPYRIGHT.  A comprehensive documentation set is included in this
distribution; it can be read as described in the installation
instructions.

The latest version of this software may be obtained at
https://www.postgresql.org/download/.  For more information look at our
web site located at https://www.postgresql.org/.