Обсуждение: Table name used as aggregate argument

How come this work in pg (8.0 and older):

  CREATE TABLE bug (x int);
  SELECT count(bug) FROM bug;

Shouldn't it complain and say that "bug" is not a column?

--
/Dennis Björklund

Dennis Bjorklund <db@zigo.dhs.org> writes:
> How come this work in pg (8.0 and older):
>   CREATE TABLE bug (x int);
>   SELECT count(bug) FROM bug;

> Shouldn't it complain and say that "bug" is not a column?

No.  This is a perfectly good, if somewhat historical, spelling of

    SELECT count(bug.*) FROM bug;

Since count() takes any data type at all, a record type is just as
good as anything else...

            regards, tom lane