Hi Ann, all,

> UNION DISTINCT is one example - we don't (I think)
> handle the keyword DISTINCT which is really just noise - the
> default union eliminates duplicates. Easy enough to do, but
> of value to whom?

Hmmm. As I've looked up there is no UNION DISTINCT in the
standard. But in other places Firebird does implement
'syntactic sugar' to follow the standard, and I'll
applaud to that. (e.g. "INSERT INTO" and "SELECT ALL").

BTW, the first reference found for "UNION DISTINCT" was
http://www.dbazine.com/celko2.html and this article
highlights a specific and a general point.

Specific: Firebird doesn't implement the SQL:92 "TABLE t"
as shortcut for "SELECT * FROM t"

General: 'Value to whom?' => For a start, everyone reading an
article, tutorial or book using standard SQL and wanting to do
the examples and exercises with Firebird.

Sorry if my enthusiasm for standard conformance may have
looked somewhat religious here. I just wanted to state,
that there is a argument for following the standard.
Weighting it against the counter arguments in every case
will give a hint on whether to do changes for better
conformance.

Best Regards,
Peter Jacobi