On 2023-Nov-01, Nathan Bossart wrote: > On Wed, Nov 01, 2023 at 09:46:52PM +0100, Laurenz Albe wrote: > > I agree for names with underscores in them. But I think that quoting > > is necessary for names like "timezone" or "datestyle" that might be > > mistaken for normal words. My personal preference is to always quote > > GUC names, but I think it is OK not to quote GOCs whose name are > > clearly not natural language words. > > +1, IMHO quoting GUC names makes it abundantly clear that they are special > identifiers. In de4d456, we quoted the role names in a bunch of messages. > We didn't quote the attribute/option names, but those are in all-caps, so > they already stand out nicely.
I like this, and I propose we codify it in the message style guide. How about this? We can start looking at code changes to make once we decide we agree with this. -- Álvaro Herrera Breisgau, Deutschland — https://www.EnterpriseDB.com/ "La verdad no siempre es bonita, pero el hambre de ella sí"
>From 909355851bfb21086422e6edc0b2b75fbaa58418 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Alvaro Herrera <alvhe...@alvh.no-ip.org> Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2023 10:24:00 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] Message style: Add paragraph about quoting names --- doc/src/sgml/sources.sgml | 8 ++++++++ 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+) diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/sources.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/sources.sgml index 06d995e4b7..d72e114ea3 100644 --- a/doc/src/sgml/sources.sgml +++ b/doc/src/sgml/sources.sgml @@ -532,23 +532,31 @@ Hint: The addendum, written as a complete sentence. <simplesect id="error-style-guide-quotes"> <title>Use of Quotes</title> <para> Always use quotes to delimit file names, user-supplied identifiers, and other variables that might contain words. Do not use them to mark up variables that will not contain words (for example, operator names). </para> <para> There are functions in the backend that will double-quote their own output as needed (for example, <function>format_type_be()</function>). Do not put additional quotes around the output of such functions. </para> + <para> + In messages containing configuration variable names, quotes are + not necessary when the names are visibly not English natural words, such + as when they have underscores or are all-uppercase. Otherwise, quotes + must be added. Do include double-quotes in a message where an arbitrary + variable name is to be expanded. + </para> + <para> Rationale: Objects can have names that create ambiguity when embedded in a message. Be consistent about denoting where a plugged-in name starts and ends. But don't clutter messages with unnecessary or duplicate quote marks. </para> </simplesect> -- 2.39.2