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+$Header: /cvsroot/pgsql/doc/src/sgml/syntax.sgml,v 1.27 2000/12/16 18:22:53 tgl Exp $
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<chapter id="syntax">
<para>
A <firstterm>target list</firstterm>
- is a parenthesized, comma-separated list of one or more elements, each
+ is a comma-separated list of one or more elements, each
of which must be of the form:
<synopsis>
</synopsis>
where <replaceable>result_attname</replaceable>
- is the name of the attribute to be created (or an
- already existing attribute name in the case of update statements.) If
+ is the name to be assigned to the created column. If
<replaceable>result_attname</replaceable>
- is not present, then
- <replaceable>a_expr</replaceable>
- must contain only one attribute name which is assumed to be the name
- of the result field. In <productname>Postgres</productname>
- default naming is only used if
- <replaceable>a_expr</replaceable>
- is an attribute.
+ is not present, then <productname>Postgres</productname> selects a
+ default name based on the contents of <replaceable>a_expr</replaceable>.
+ If <replaceable>a_expr</replaceable> is a simple attribute reference
+ then the default name will be the same as that attribute's name, but
+ otherwise the implementation is free to assign any default name.
</para>
</sect2>