Commit e274325e authored by Tom Lane's avatar Tom Lane

Fix incorrect description of rowtype variable declarations. Eventually

(IMHO) the code should be fixed to do what the documentation formerly
claimed, and then revert this change.
parent 4764ae82
<!--
$Header: /cvsroot/pgsql/doc/src/sgml/Attic/plsql.sgml,v 2.51 2001/11/28 04:18:46 tgl Exp $
$Header: /cvsroot/pgsql/doc/src/sgml/Attic/plsql.sgml,v 2.52 2002/01/02 00:41:26 tgl Exp $
-->
<chapter id="plpgsql">
......@@ -457,20 +457,27 @@ END;
<para>
<synopsis>
<replaceable>name</replaceable> <replaceable>table-datatype</replaceable>;
<replaceable>name</replaceable> <replaceable>tablename</replaceable><literal>%ROWTYPE</literal>;
</synopsis>
</para>
<para>
A variable declared with a composite type (referenced by the name of
the table that defines that type) is called a <firstterm>row</>
variable. Such a variable can hold a whole row of a SELECT or FOR
A variable of a composite type is called a <firstterm>row</>
variable (or <firstterm>rowtype</> variable). Such a variable can hold a
whole row of a SELECT or FOR
query result, so long as that query's column set matches the declared
rowtype of the variable. The individual fields of the row value are
type of the variable. The individual fields of the row value are
accessed using the usual dot notation, for example
<literal>rowvar.field</literal>.
</para>
<para>
Presently, a row variable can only be declared using the
<literal>%ROWTYPE</literal> notation; although one might expect a
bare table name to work as a type declaration, it won't be accepted
within <application>PL/pgSQL</application> functions.
</para>
<para>
Parameters to a function can be
composite types (complete table rows). In that case, the
......@@ -563,9 +570,7 @@ user_id users.user_id%TYPE;
<type>%ROWTYPE</type> provides the composite data type corresponding
to a whole row of the specified table.
<replaceable>table</replaceable> must be an existing
table or view name of the database. A row variable declared
in this way acts the same as a row variable explicitly declared using
the same composite (row) datatype.
table or view name of the database.
</para>
<programlisting>
......@@ -616,6 +621,15 @@ RENAME id TO user_id;
RENAME this_var TO that_var;
</programlisting>
</para>
<note>
<para>
RENAME appears to be broken as of PostgreSQL 7.2. Fixing this is
of low priority, since ALIAS covers most of the practical uses of
RENAME.
</para>
</note>
</sect2>
</sect1>
......
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