Re: [DOCS] [BUGS] BUG #7543: Invalid table alias: DELETE FROM table *

[Tom Lane]

barry...@sierracollege.edu writes:
> I sometime see my users delete all rows from a table using a command like
> this:

> DELETE FROM customer *;

> The question is: what is the star? Is it a table alias or an
> output_expression?

Neither; it specifies to search the table and its inheritance children,
ie, the opposite of ONLY. This has been the default behavior (unless
you change the setting of sql_inheritance) for many years, so "*" has
largely fallen into disuse; but it's still accepted.

However ... I went looking for documentation on this point, and I'm
darned if I can find any. There certainly used to be some, but
apparently somebody got over-eager about editing the docs to reflect
the modern default behavior. The "*" doesn't even appear in the syntax
summaries for most of the commands where it's allowed, which is flat
wrong --- anywhere you can write "ONLY tablename", it's valid to write
"tablename*" instead.

So we have some docs work to do. Thanks for pointing it out.

regards, tom lane


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