Use a different font and/or color for the syntactic markers

[pkoppstein]

https://duckdb.org/docs/data/json/creating_json.html gives the synopsis:

json_object([key, value, ...])

but the example lower down is:

SELECT json_object('duck', 42);

In fact, DuckDB v1.1.4-dev2210 does not accept the form given in the synopsis:

SELECT json_object(['duck', 42]);
Invalid Input Error:
json_object() requires an even number of arguments

Note also:

SELECT json_object(['duck'], [42]) as "not what we want";
┌──────────────────┐
│ not what we want │
│       json       │
├──────────────────┤
│ {"[duck]":[42]}  │
└──────────────────┘

[soerenwolfers]

The square brackets in the function signature indicate optional arguments. The ellipsis in the square brackets indicates that the function is variadic.

See the function json_array just above.

Agree the notation for function signatures is currently far from ideal, but it's consistent.

[pkoppstein]

@soerenwolfers - Sorry for the noise. Any chance of turning this "Issue" into an enhancement request for the documentation to use a different font and/or color for the syntactic markers?

[szarnyasg]

Any chance of turning this "Issue" into an enhancement request for the documentation to use a different font and/or color for the syntactic markers?

Sure, we can think about those. I adjusted the title/labels accordingly.

[szarnyasg]

I took a look at this issue again and I adjusted the related JSON function examples in a PR, so I'll close this.

[pkoppstein]

@szarnyasg wrote:

I took a look at this issue again

There's nothing quite like simplicity :-)

The one thing that's not immediately clear, though, is that both functions can be called without any arguments. So, for your consideration...

json_array(any, ...) | Create a JSON array from the value(s), if any, in the argument list.

json_object(key, value, ...) | Create a JSON object from the key-value pair(s), if any, in the argument list. Requires an even number of arguments.