The initial collations patch treated a COLLATE spec as part of a TypeName,
following what can only be described as brain fade on the part of the SQL
committee. It's a lot more reasonable to treat COLLATE as a syntactically
separate object, so that it can be added in only the productions where it
actually belongs, rather than needing to reject it in a boatload of places
where it doesn't belong (something the original patch mostly failed to do).
In addition this change lets us meet the spec's requirement to allow
COLLATE anywhere in the clauses of a ColumnDef, and it avoids unfriendly
behavior for constructs such as "foo::type COLLATE collation".
To do this, pull collation information out of TypeName and put it in
ColumnDef instead, thus reverting most of the collation-related changes in
parse_type.c's API. I made one additional structural change, which was to
use a ColumnDef as an intermediate node in AT_AlterColumnType AlterTableCmd
nodes. This provides enough room to get rid of the "transform" wart in
AlterTableCmd too, since the ColumnDef can carry the USING expression
easily enough.
Also fix some other minor bugs that have crept in in the same areas,
like failure to copy recently-added fields of ColumnDef in copyfuncs.c.
While at it, document the formerly secret ability to specify a collation
in ALTER TABLE ALTER COLUMN TYPE, ALTER TYPE ADD ATTRIBUTE, and
ALTER TYPE ALTER ATTRIBUTE TYPE; and correct some misstatements about
what the default collation selection will be when COLLATE is omitted.
BTW, the three-parameter form of format_type() should go away too,
since it just contributes to the confusion in this area; but I'll do
that in a separate patch.
DROP [ COLUMN ] [ IF EXISTS ] <replaceable class="PARAMETER">column</replaceable> [ RESTRICT | CASCADE ]
DROP [ COLUMN ] [ IF EXISTS ] <replaceable class="PARAMETER">column</replaceable> [ RESTRICT | CASCADE ]
ALTER [ COLUMN ] <replaceable class="PARAMETER">column</replaceable> [ SET DATA ] TYPE <replaceable class="PARAMETER">type</replaceable> [ USING <replaceable class="PARAMETER">expression</replaceable> ]
ALTER [ COLUMN ] <replaceable class="PARAMETER">column</replaceable> [ SET DATA ] TYPE <replaceable class="PARAMETER">data_type</replaceable> [ COLLATE <replaceable class="PARAMETER">collation</replaceable> ] [ USING <replaceable class="PARAMETER">expression</replaceable> ]
ALTER [ COLUMN ] <replaceable class="PARAMETER">column</replaceable> SET DEFAULT <replaceable class="PARAMETER">expression</replaceable>
ALTER [ COLUMN ] <replaceable class="PARAMETER">column</replaceable> SET DEFAULT <replaceable class="PARAMETER">expression</replaceable>
ALTER [ COLUMN ] <replaceable class="PARAMETER">column</replaceable> DROP DEFAULT
ALTER [ COLUMN ] <replaceable class="PARAMETER">column</replaceable> DROP DEFAULT
ALTER [ COLUMN ] <replaceable class="PARAMETER">column</replaceable> { SET | DROP } NOT NULL
ALTER [ COLUMN ] <replaceable class="PARAMETER">column</replaceable> { SET | DROP } NOT NULL
@ -115,7 +115,11 @@ ALTER TABLE <replaceable class="PARAMETER">name</replaceable>
This form changes the type of a column of a table. Indexes and
This form changes the type of a column of a table. Indexes and
simple table constraints involving the column will be automatically
simple table constraints involving the column will be automatically
converted to use the new column type by reparsing the originally
converted to use the new column type by reparsing the originally
supplied expression. The optional <literal>USING</literal>
supplied expression.
The optional <literal>COLLATE</literal> clause specifies a collation
for the new column; if omitted, the collation is the default for the
new column type.
The optional <literal>USING</literal>
clause specifies how to compute the new column value from the old;
clause specifies how to compute the new column value from the old;
if omitted, the default conversion is the same as an assignment
if omitted, the default conversion is the same as an assignment
cast from old data type to new. A <literal>USING</literal>
cast from old data type to new. A <literal>USING</literal>
DROP ATTRIBUTE [ IF EXISTS ] <replaceable class="PARAMETER">attribute_name</replaceable> [ CASCADE | RESTRICT ]
DROP ATTRIBUTE [ IF EXISTS ] <replaceable class="PARAMETER">attribute_name</replaceable> [ CASCADE | RESTRICT ]
ALTER ATTRIBUTE <replaceable class="PARAMETER">attribute_name</replaceable> [ SET DATA ] TYPE <replaceable class="PARAMETER">data_type</replaceable> [ CASCADE | RESTRICT ]
ALTER ATTRIBUTE <replaceable class="PARAMETER">attribute_name</replaceable> [ SET DATA ] TYPE <replaceable class="PARAMETER">data_type</replaceable> [ COLLATE <replaceable class="PARAMETER">collation</replaceable> ] [ CASCADE | RESTRICT ]