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Tom Lane authored
The SQL standard does not have general functions-in-FROM, but it does
allow UNNEST() there (see the <collection derived table> production),
and the semantics of that are defined to include lateral references.
So spec compliance requires allowing lateral references within UNNEST()
even without an explicit LATERAL keyword.  Rather than making UNNEST()
a special case, it seems best to extend this flexibility to any
function-in-FROM.  We'll still allow LATERAL to be written explicitly
for clarity's sake, but it's now a noise word in this context.

In theory this change could result in a change in behavior of existing
queries, by allowing what had been an outer reference in a function-in-FROM
to be captured by an earlier FROM-item at the same level.  However, all
pre-9.3 PG releases have a bug that causes them to match variable
references to earlier FROM-items in preference to outer references (and
then throw an error).  So no previously-working query could contain the
type of ambiguity that would risk a change of behavior.

Per a suggestion from Andrew Gierth, though I didn't use his patch.
2378d79a
History
PostgreSQL Database Management System
=====================================

This directory contains the source code distribution of the PostgreSQL
database management system.

PostgreSQL is an advanced object-relational database management system
that supports an extended subset of the SQL standard, including
transactions, foreign keys, subqueries, triggers, user-defined types
and functions.  This distribution also contains C language bindings.

PostgreSQL has many language interfaces, many of which are listed here:

	http://www.postgresql.org/download

See the file INSTALL for instructions on how to build and install
PostgreSQL.  That file also lists supported operating systems and
hardware platforms and contains information regarding any other
software packages that are required to build or run the PostgreSQL
system.  Changes between all PostgreSQL releases are recorded in the
file HISTORY.  Copyright and license information can be found in the
file COPYRIGHT.  A comprehensive documentation set is included in this
distribution; it can be read as described in the installation
instructions.

The latest version of this software may be obtained at
http://www.postgresql.org/download/.  For more information look at our
web site located at http://www.postgresql.org/.