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Is a better PL/pgSQL editor / debugger than pgAdmin III or phpPgAdmin
available anywhere?



I ask because I was stuck for two days on the following error message:



ERROR: syntax error at or near "LOOP"

CONTEXT: compile of PL/pgSQL function "gen_history" near line 126



..and neither of those tools offered any more help than that. It turned out
the error was a missing ";" way back in line 53, and it took two days of
trial and error and staring at the code to find it. (On the positive side,
pgAdmin III's use of different colors to distinguish different program
elements [variables, keywords, string constants, comments] made the staring
part easier to do.)



I've learned that pgAdmin "syntax error" can mean anything from a missing
";" to a faulty block structure to an undeclared variable to. I don't know
what else, and as witness the example that error may be nowhere near the
line that is flagged. So I'm looking for a PL/pgSQL tool that would at
least provide more diagnostic error messages. Preferably, it would also
offer some sort of "breakpoint" function to let the developer see the values
of variables at specified points in the code.



I looked on the pgAdmin web site. The only place a PL/pgSQL debugger was
mentioned was on the "to do" page, under "major projects"
(http://www.pgadmin.org/development/todo.php), which I guess means don't
hold your breath.



As editors, the two pgAdmin tools apparently don't offer elementary
functions such as find and replace, which means I have to slurp my code out
into a text editor when I really need these things.



So I guess my questions are:



* Is it the case that the pgAdmin tools actually do offer these
features, but I just haven't found them yet? If so, can you show me where
they are?
* Are these functions available through add-ons to either pgAdmin
tool? If so, where can I get these add-ons?
* Are there other PL/pgSQL editors that provide these functions? If
so, what? Obviously, I'd prefer a free one, but would pay for one if
necessary.



~ TIA

~ Ken

"Ken Winter" <ken@sunward.org> writes:
> I ask because I was stuck for two days on the following error message:
> ERROR: syntax error at or near "LOOP"
> CONTEXT: compile of PL/pgSQL function "gen_history" near line 126
> and neither of those tools offered any more help than that. It turned out
> the error was a missing ";" way back in line 53, and it took two days of
> trial and error and staring at the code to find it.

What Postgres version are you using?

I would blame the backend more than the client tools for the failure to
localize this syntax error. We've made significant progress in 8.0
and again in 8.1 on improving plpgsql's error messages --- if you are
not on 8.1 the first thing to try is a backend upgrade.

regards, tom lane

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On 28 Jan 2006 at 13:16, Ken Winter wrote:

> I've learned that pgAdmin "syntax error" can mean anything from a
> missing ";" to a faulty block structure to an undeclared variable to. I

AFAIK, the error messages you're seeing are generated by the database
backend and not by pgAdmin - pgAdmin simply passes on to you what it
receives from the backend.

--Ray.

-------------------------------------------------------------
Raymond O'Donnell http://www.galwaycathedral.org/recitals
rod@iol.ie Galway Cathedral Recitals
-------------------------------------------------------------


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There is a better editor available:
http://www.amsoftwaredesign.com
http://www.amsoftwaredesign.com/lightning_admin.php

I invite you to try it out :-)

It provides all the find/replace goto line number etc, many of the
features of a IDE such as Delphi 2006 or VS, it also has super nice
tabbed based MDI.
We also offer code completion for schemas, user functions and built in
functions.

I will probably get flamed but PG Admin III's function editing is not
much better than notepad.

The server provides the error messages, and on versions before 8.0 they
did not do much checking at all.
Version 8.1 does the best checking and I advise you to upgrade your
server, it's not that difficult.

Another thing to keep in mind is if you restore a dump from 7.x to 8.x
it will not do any checking unless you make a tweak, see this article:
http://www.milwaukeesoft.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=83

As far as I know this affects 8.0 and 8.1, I am sure someone will
correct me if I am wrong :-)

Hope this helps,

--
Tony Caduto
http://www.amsoftwaredesign.com
Home of PG Lightning Admin for Postgresql 8.x





Ken Winter wrote:
>
> Is a better PL/pgSQL editor / debugger than pgAdmin III or phpPgAdmin
> available anywhere?
>
>
> As editors, the two pgAdmin tools apparently don’t offer elementary
> functions such as find and replace, which means I have to slurp my
> code out into a text editor when I really need these things.
>
> So I guess my questions are:
>
> * Is it the case that the pgAdmin tools actually do offer these
> features, but I just haven’t found them yet? If so, can you show
> me where they are?
> * Are these functions available through add-ons to either pgAdmin
> tool? If so, where can I get these add-ons?
> * Are there other PL/pgSQL editors that provide these functions?
> If so, what? Obviously, I’d prefer a free one, but would pay for
> one if necessary.
>
> ~ TIA
>
> ~ Ken
>


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PG Lightning does Code Completion. I don't think there is a frontend tool that can step through a PL/pgSQL function.

Ben
""Ken Winter"" <ken@sunward.org> wrote in message news:002201c62436$f899f0f0$6603a8c0@kenxp...
Is a better PL/pgSQL editor / debugger than pgAdmin III or phpPgAdmin available anywhere?



I ask because I was stuck for two days on the following error message:



ERROR: syntax error at or near "LOOP"

CONTEXT: compile of PL/pgSQL function "gen_history" near line 126



.and neither of those tools offered any more help than that. It turned out the error was a missing ";" way back in line 53, and it took two days of trial and error and staring at the code to find it. (On the positive side, pgAdmin III's use of different colors to distinguish different program elements [variables, keywords, string constants, comments] made the staring part easier to do.)



I've learned that pgAdmin "syntax error" can mean anything from a missing ";" to a faulty block structure to an undeclared variable to. I don't know what else, and as witness the example that error may be nowhere near the line that is flagged. So I'm looking for a PL/pgSQL tool that would at least provide more diagnostic error messages. Preferably, it would also offer some sort of "breakpoint" function to let the developer see the values of variables at specified points in the code.



I looked on the pgAdmin web site. The only place a PL/pgSQL debugger was mentioned was on the "to do" page, under "major projects" (http://www.pgadmin.org/development/todo.php), which I guess means don't hold your breath.



As editors, the two pgAdmin tools apparently don't offer elementary functions such as find and replace, which means I have to slurp my code out into a text editor when I really need these things.



So I guess my questions are:



a.. Is it the case that the pgAdmin tools actually do offer these features, but I just haven't found them yet? If so, can you show me where they are?
b.. Are these functions available through add-ons to either pgAdmin tool? If so, where can I get these add-ons?
c.. Are there other PL/pgSQL editors that provide these functions? If so, what? Obviously, I'd prefer a free one, but would pay for one if necessary.


~ TIA

~ Ken

Tom ~

Thanks for the news. I'm on PostgreSQL 7.4.7, alas, and there's nothing I
can do about it because it resides on a host that I don't control. I
suppose if I don't find an alternative, I could move my development work to
a local installation of PostgreSQL 8.1.

~ Ken

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tom Lane [mailto:tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us]
> Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2006 1:26 PM
> To: Ken Winter
> Cc: PostgreSQL pg-general List
> Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Seeking a better PL/pgSQL editor-debugger
>
> "Ken Winter" <ken@sunward.org> writes:
> > I ask because I was stuck for two days on the following error message:
> > ERROR: syntax error at or near "LOOP"
> > CONTEXT: compile of PL/pgSQL function "gen_history" near line 126
> > and neither of those tools offered any more help than that. It turned
> out
> > the error was a missing ";" way back in line 53, and it took two days of
> > trial and error and staring at the code to find it.
>
> What Postgres version are you using?
>
> I would blame the backend more than the client tools for the failure to
> localize this syntax error. We've made significant progress in 8.0
> and again in 8.1 on improving plpgsql's error messages --- if you are
> not on 8.1 the first thing to try is a backend upgrade.
>
> regards, tom lane






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Tony Caduto <tony_caduto@amsoftwaredesign.com> writes:
> Another thing to keep in mind is if you restore a dump from 7.x to 8.x
> it will not do any checking unless you make a tweak, see this article:
> http://www.milwaukeesoft.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=83

> As far as I know this affects 8.0 and 8.1, I am sure someone will
> correct me if I am wrong :-)

That is true in 8.0 but not anymore in 8.1. The reason we invented the
"pg_pltemplate" catalog is to ensure that old dumps of PL language
definitions will track desired changes without such manual heroics ...

regards, tom lane

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> That is true in 8.0 but not anymore in 8.1. The reason we invented the
> "pg_pltemplate" catalog is to ensure that old dumps of PL language
> definitions will track desired changes without such manual heroics ...
>

Tom,

Thanks for the info, I will update my article to reflect that.

--
Tony Caduto
AM Software Design
Home of PG Lightning Admin for Postgresql
http://www.amsoftwaredesign.com

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