Fix SQL-style substring() to have spec-compliant greediness behavior.

SQL's regular-expression substring() function is defined to have a
pattern argument that's separated into three subpatterns by escape-
double-quote markers; the function result is the part of the input
matching the second subpattern.  The standard makes it clear that
if there is ambiguity about how to match the input to the subpatterns,
the first and third subpatterns should be taken to match the smallest
possible amount of text (i.e., they're "non greedy", in the terms of
our regex code).  We were not doing it that way: the first subpattern
would eat the largest possible amount of text, causing the function
result to be shorter than what the spec requires.

Fix that by attaching explicit greediness quantifiers to the
subpatterns.  (This depends on the regex fix in commit 8a29ed0;
before that, this didn't reliably change the regex engine's behavior.)

Also, by adding parentheses around each subpattern, we ensure that
"|" (OR) in the subpatterns behave sanely.  Previously, "|" in the
first or third subpatterns didn't work.

This patch also makes the function throw error if you write more than
two escape-double-quote markers, and do something sane if you write
just one, and document that behavior.  Previously, an odd number of
markers led to a confusing complaint about unbalanced parentheses,
while extra pairs of markers were just ignored.  (Note that the spec
requires exactly two markers, but we've historically allowed there
to be none, and this patch preserves the old behavior for that case.)

In passing, adjust some substring() test cases that didn't really
prove what they said they were testing for: they used patterns
that didn't match the data string, so that the output would be
NULL whether or not the function was really strict.

Although this is certainly a bug fix, changing the behavior in back
branches seems undesirable: applications could perhaps be depending on
the old behavior, since it's not obviously wrong unless you read the
spec very closely.  Hence, no back-patch.

Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/[email protected]

Author: tglsfdc

doc/src/sgml/func.sgml

@@ -4296,19 +4296,45 @@ cast(-44 as bit(12))           <lineannotation>111111010100</lineannotation>
    </para>
 
    <para>
-    The <function>substring</function> function with three parameters,
-    <function>substring(<replaceable>string</replaceable> from
-    <replaceable>pattern</replaceable> for
-    <replaceable>escape-character</replaceable>)</function>, provides
-    extraction of a substring that matches an SQL
-    regular expression pattern.  As with <literal>SIMILAR TO</literal>, the
+    The <function>substring</function> function with three parameters
+    provides extraction of a substring that matches an SQL
+    regular expression pattern.  The function can be written according
+    to SQL99 syntax:
+<synopsis>
+substring(<replaceable>string</replaceable> from <replaceable>pattern</replaceable> for <replaceable>escape-character</replaceable>)
+</synopsis>
+    or as a plain three-argument function:
+<synopsis>
+substring(<replaceable>string</replaceable>, <replaceable>pattern</replaceable>, <replaceable>escape-character</replaceable>)
+</synopsis>
+    As with <literal>SIMILAR TO</literal>, the
     specified pattern must match the entire data string, or else the
     function fails and returns null.  To indicate the part of the
-    pattern that should be returned on success, the pattern must contain
+    pattern for which the matching data sub-string is of interest,
+    the pattern should contain
     two occurrences of the escape character followed by a double quote
     (<literal>"</literal>). <!-- " font-lock sanity -->
     The text matching the portion of the pattern
-    between these markers is returned.
+    between these separators is returned when the match is successful.
+   </para>
+
+   <para>
+    The escape-double-quote separators actually
+    divide <function>substring</function>'s pattern into three independent
+    regular expressions; for example, a vertical bar (<literal>|</literal>)
+    in any of the three sections affects only that section.  Also, the first
+    and third of these regular expressions are defined to match the smallest
+    possible amount of text, not the largest, when there is any ambiguity
+    about how much of the data string matches which pattern.  (In POSIX
+    parlance, the first and third regular expressions are forced to be
+    non-greedy.)
+   </para>
+
+   <para>
+    As an extension to the SQL standard, <productname>PostgreSQL</productname>
+    allows there to be just one escape-double-quote separator, in which case
+    the third regular expression is taken as empty; or no separators, in which
+    case the first and third regular expressions are taken as empty.
    </para>
 
    <para>

src/backend/utils/adt/regexp.c

@@ -708,20 +708,42 @@ similar_escape(PG_FUNCTION_ARGS)
 	 * We surround the transformed input string with
 	 *			^(?: ... )$
 	 * which requires some explanation.  We need "^" and "$" to force
-	 * the pattern to match the entire input string as per SQL99 spec.
+	 * the pattern to match the entire input string as per the SQL spec.
 	 * The "(?:" and ")" are a non-capturing set of parens; we have to have
 	 * parens in case the string contains "|", else the "^" and "$" will
 	 * be bound into the first and last alternatives which is not what we
 	 * want, and the parens must be non capturing because we don't want them
 	 * to count when selecting output for SUBSTRING.
+	 *
+	 * When the pattern is divided into three parts by escape-double-quotes,
+	 * what we emit is
+	 *			^(?:part1){1,1}?(part2){1,1}(?:part3)$
+	 * which requires even more explanation.  The "{1,1}?" on part1 makes it
+	 * non-greedy so that it will match the smallest possible amount of text
+	 * not the largest, as required by SQL.  The plain parens around part2
+	 * are capturing parens so that that part is what controls the result of
+	 * SUBSTRING.  The "{1,1}" forces part2 to be greedy, so that it matches
+	 * the largest possible amount of text; hence part3 must match the
+	 * smallest amount of text, as required by SQL.  We don't need an explicit
+	 * greediness marker on part3.  Note that this also confines the effects
+	 * of any "|" characters to the respective part, which is what we want.
+	 *
+	 * The SQL spec says that SUBSTRING's pattern must contain exactly two
+	 * escape-double-quotes, but we only complain if there's more than two.
+	 * With none, we act as though part1 and part3 are empty; with one, we
+	 * act as though part3 is empty.  Both behaviors fall out of omitting
+	 * the relevant part separators in the above expansion.  If the result
+	 * of this function is used in a plain regexp match (SIMILAR TO), the
+	 * escape-double-quotes have no effect on the match behavior.
 	 *----------
 	 */
 
 	/*
-	 * We need room for the prefix/postfix plus as many as 3 output bytes per
-	 * input byte; since the input is at most 1GB this can't overflow
+	 * We need room for the prefix/postfix and part separators, plus as many
+	 * as 3 output bytes per input byte; since the input is at most 1GB this
+	 * can't overflow size_t.
 	 */
-	result = (text *) palloc(VARHDRSZ + 6 + 3 * plen);
+	result = (text *) palloc(VARHDRSZ + 23 + 3 * (size_t) plen);
 	r = VARDATA(result);
 
 	*r++ = '^';
@@ -760,7 +782,7 @@ similar_escape(PG_FUNCTION_ARGS)
 				}
 				else if (e && elen == mblen && memcmp(e, p, mblen) == 0)
 				{
-					/* SQL99 escape character; do not send to output */
+					/* SQL escape character; do not send to output */
 					afterescape = true;
 				}
 				else
@@ -784,18 +806,53 @@ similar_escape(PG_FUNCTION_ARGS)
 		/* fast path */
 		if (afterescape)
 		{
-			if (pchar == '"' && !incharclass)	/* for SUBSTRING patterns */
-				*r++ = ((nquotes++ % 2) == 0) ? '(' : ')';
+			if (pchar == '"' && !incharclass)	/* escape-double-quote? */
+			{
+				/* emit appropriate part separator, per notes above */
+				if (nquotes == 0)
+				{
+					*r++ = ')';
+					*r++ = '{';
+					*r++ = '1';
+					*r++ = ',';
+					*r++ = '1';
+					*r++ = '}';
+					*r++ = '?';
+					*r++ = '(';
+				}
+				else if (nquotes == 1)
+				{
+					*r++ = ')';
+					*r++ = '{';
+					*r++ = '1';
+					*r++ = ',';
+					*r++ = '1';
+					*r++ = '}';
+					*r++ = '(';
+					*r++ = '?';
+					*r++ = ':';
+				}
+				else
+					ereport(ERROR,
+							(errcode(ERRCODE_INVALID_USE_OF_ESCAPE_CHARACTER),
+							 errmsg("SQL regular expression may not contain more than two escape-double-quote separators")));
+				nquotes++;
+			}
 			else
 			{
+				/*
+				 * We allow any character at all to be escaped; notably, this
+				 * allows access to POSIX character-class escapes such as
+				 * "\d".  The SQL spec is considerably more restrictive.
+				 */
 				*r++ = '\\';
 				*r++ = pchar;
 			}
 			afterescape = false;
 		}
 		else if (e && pchar == *e)
 		{
-			/* SQL99 escape character; do not send to output */
+			/* SQL escape character; do not send to output */
 			afterescape = true;
 		}
 		else if (incharclass)

src/test/regress/expected/strings.out

@@ -313,7 +313,7 @@ SELECT SUBSTRING('1234567890' FROM 4 FOR 3) = '456' AS "456";
  t
 (1 row)
 
--- T581 regular expression substring (with SQL99's bizarre regexp syntax)
+-- T581 regular expression substring (with SQL's bizarre regexp syntax)
 SELECT SUBSTRING('abcdefg' FROM 'a#"(b_d)#"%' FOR '#') AS "bcd";
  bcd 
 -----
@@ -328,13 +328,13 @@ SELECT SUBSTRING('abcdefg' FROM '#"(b_d)#"%' FOR '#') IS NULL AS "True";
 (1 row)
 
 -- Null inputs should return NULL
-SELECT SUBSTRING('abcdefg' FROM '(b|c)' FOR NULL) IS NULL AS "True";
+SELECT SUBSTRING('abcdefg' FROM '%' FOR NULL) IS NULL AS "True";
  True 
 ------
  t
 (1 row)
 
-SELECT SUBSTRING(NULL FROM '(b|c)' FOR '#') IS NULL AS "True";
+SELECT SUBSTRING(NULL FROM '%' FOR '#') IS NULL AS "True";
  True 
 ------
  t
@@ -346,8 +346,57 @@ SELECT SUBSTRING('abcdefg' FROM NULL FOR '#') IS NULL AS "True";
  t
 (1 row)
 
--- PostgreSQL extension to allow omitting the escape character;
--- here the regexp is taken as Posix syntax
+-- The first and last parts should act non-greedy
+SELECT SUBSTRING('abcdefg' FROM 'a#"%#"g' FOR '#') AS "bcdef";
+ bcdef 
+-------
+ bcdef
+(1 row)
+
+SELECT SUBSTRING('abcdefg' FROM 'a*#"%#"g*' FOR '#') AS "abcdefg";
+ abcdefg 
+---------
+ abcdefg
+(1 row)
+
+-- Vertical bar in any part affects only that part
+SELECT SUBSTRING('abcdefg' FROM 'a|b#"%#"g' FOR '#') AS "bcdef";
+ bcdef 
+-------
+ bcdef
+(1 row)
+
+SELECT SUBSTRING('abcdefg' FROM 'a#"%#"x|g' FOR '#') AS "bcdef";
+ bcdef 
+-------
+ bcdef
+(1 row)
+
+SELECT SUBSTRING('abcdefg' FROM 'a#"%|ab#"g' FOR '#') AS "bcdef";
+ bcdef 
+-------
+ bcdef
+(1 row)
+
+-- Can't have more than two part separators
+SELECT SUBSTRING('abcdefg' FROM 'a*#"%#"g*#"x' FOR '#') AS "error";
+ERROR:  SQL regular expression may not contain more than two escape-double-quote separators
+CONTEXT:  SQL function "substring" statement 1
+-- Postgres extension: with 0 or 1 separator, assume parts 1 and 3 are empty
+SELECT SUBSTRING('abcdefg' FROM 'a#"%g' FOR '#') AS "bcdefg";
+ bcdefg 
+--------
+ bcdefg
+(1 row)
+
+SELECT SUBSTRING('abcdefg' FROM 'a%g' FOR '#') AS "abcdefg";
+ abcdefg 
+---------
+ abcdefg
+(1 row)
+
+-- substring() with just two arguments is not allowed by SQL spec;
+-- we accept it, but we interpret the pattern as a POSIX regexp not SQL
 SELECT SUBSTRING('abcdefg' FROM 'c.e') AS "cde";
  cde 
 -----

src/test/regress/sql/strings.sql

@@ -110,19 +110,35 @@ SELECT SUBSTRING('1234567890' FROM 3) = '34567890' AS "34567890";
 
 SELECT SUBSTRING('1234567890' FROM 4 FOR 3) = '456' AS "456";
 
--- T581 regular expression substring (with SQL99's bizarre regexp syntax)
+-- T581 regular expression substring (with SQL's bizarre regexp syntax)
 SELECT SUBSTRING('abcdefg' FROM 'a#"(b_d)#"%' FOR '#') AS "bcd";
 
 -- No match should return NULL
 SELECT SUBSTRING('abcdefg' FROM '#"(b_d)#"%' FOR '#') IS NULL AS "True";
 
 -- Null inputs should return NULL
-SELECT SUBSTRING('abcdefg' FROM '(b|c)' FOR NULL) IS NULL AS "True";
-SELECT SUBSTRING(NULL FROM '(b|c)' FOR '#') IS NULL AS "True";
+SELECT SUBSTRING('abcdefg' FROM '%' FOR NULL) IS NULL AS "True";
+SELECT SUBSTRING(NULL FROM '%' FOR '#') IS NULL AS "True";
 SELECT SUBSTRING('abcdefg' FROM NULL FOR '#') IS NULL AS "True";
 
--- PostgreSQL extension to allow omitting the escape character;
--- here the regexp is taken as Posix syntax
+-- The first and last parts should act non-greedy
+SELECT SUBSTRING('abcdefg' FROM 'a#"%#"g' FOR '#') AS "bcdef";
+SELECT SUBSTRING('abcdefg' FROM 'a*#"%#"g*' FOR '#') AS "abcdefg";
+
+-- Vertical bar in any part affects only that part
+SELECT SUBSTRING('abcdefg' FROM 'a|b#"%#"g' FOR '#') AS "bcdef";
+SELECT SUBSTRING('abcdefg' FROM 'a#"%#"x|g' FOR '#') AS "bcdef";
+SELECT SUBSTRING('abcdefg' FROM 'a#"%|ab#"g' FOR '#') AS "bcdef";
+
+-- Can't have more than two part separators
+SELECT SUBSTRING('abcdefg' FROM 'a*#"%#"g*#"x' FOR '#') AS "error";
+
+-- Postgres extension: with 0 or 1 separator, assume parts 1 and 3 are empty
+SELECT SUBSTRING('abcdefg' FROM 'a#"%g' FOR '#') AS "bcdefg";
+SELECT SUBSTRING('abcdefg' FROM 'a%g' FOR '#') AS "abcdefg";
+
+-- substring() with just two arguments is not allowed by SQL spec;
+-- we accept it, but we interpret the pattern as a POSIX regexp not SQL
 SELECT SUBSTRING('abcdefg' FROM 'c.e') AS "cde";
 
 -- With a parenthesized subexpression, return only what matches the subexpr