Re: LIMIT NULL

On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 12:22 PM, David E. Wheeler <david@kineticode.com> wrote:
>> In effect it does say that - perhaps not quite as explicitly as you might
>> have wanted. It says: "The information in this part is presented in a
>> narrative fashion in topical units. Readers looking for a complete
>> description of a particular command should look into Part VI. " (the "PART
>> VI" is a link).
>
> Which would make sense if you were reading it as a book, from front to back.
> But as Svenn, Rick, and I have shown, that's not how people find PostgreSQL
> documentation. There should be cross references to the proper pages in Part
> VI on every relevant page in the narrative sections, IMHO.

Just to play devil's advocate, I have used the PostgreSQL
documentation for years and have long understood that the references
pages are the place to go if you really need the nitty-gritty on how a
particular command works. I agree that you might not realize this if
you just casually Google your way in, but I can't imagine that problem
is fixable.  You'll just end up with a zillion cross-references that
will, overall, reduce the clarity and readability of the
documentation, which is overall very good.

Still, the queries-limit.html page includes this statement: "OFFSET 0
is the same as omitting the OFFSET clause."  I don't see that there
would be anything bad or confusing about changing it to read this way:
"OFFSET 0 is the same as omitting the OFFSET clause, and LIMIT NULL is
the same as omitting the LIMIT clause."  In fact, it seems nicely
symmetric.

...Robert