Selection to Uppercase does not work for string literal values...

[WexSoft]

Hi Folks

I have assigned the Selection To Uppercase option to keys Ctrl/U and use it quite a bit. I've noticed in version 12.0.7.1837 that if the string I select contains a single quote character, the uppercase function is not performed i.e. it stays as lowercase.

Thus selecting

lower

and pressing Ctrl/U will change it to

LOWER

as expected, but selecting

'lower

and pressing Ctrl/U will not change it.

This happens in SQL and Program windows at least. Is there a Preference that would turn off this unwanted behaviour?

 

[William Robertson]

It's not entirely unwanted. Often you want to change the case of code without changing flags like WHERE SOMECOL = 'Y' to where somecol = 'y' etc. Perhaps a preference would be helpful though.

 

[WexSoft]

Agreed William, a preference would be the best option. I am already used to having to uppercase and lowercase individual pieces of code (I like my keywords uppercase and my object names lowercase) when the beautifier won't work, so if I select a piece of code and do Ctrl/U I expect it all to be made uppercase.

 

[IncredibleMrT]

I'll third that sentiment. I use this quite often, and really like the fact that it doesn't touch the string value.

 

[William Robertson]

I like my keywords uppercase and my object names lowercase

I probably won't convert you in this thread, but I switched to lowercase a few years ago after resolutely uppercasing my keywords for 20 years, and I was amazed how much better it was. I think it just hadn't occurred to me that you could. I personally think it looks more like professionally developed software, and in an industry that often doesn't even consider PL/SQL a programming language, I think that matters.https://www.quora.com/Why-do-FORTRA...ter-for-the-commands-which-is-so-hard-to-read

They had the same issue in HTML, and the consensus has moved towards lowercase:https://www.quora.com/Why-are-lower-case-tags-more-appropriate-for-HTML

Even COBOL programmers are using lowercase these days:http://queenofcobol.com/uppercase-lowercase

 

[WexSoft]

I guess it's a personal preference - I've been coding since 1980, starting with CoBOL and moving to PL/SQL in the mid 1990s. I like the uppercase keywords in PL/SQL because it makes the lowercase variable and object names stand out - I also use different colours in the syntax highlighting to make them stand out even more.

As an aside here, can I just say that I really enjoyed your articles on customising PL/SQL Developer when I came across them some years ago, and implemented many of the changes you suggested.

 

[William Robertson]

I like the uppercase keywords in PL/SQL because it makes the lowercase variable and object names stand out

I think that was what I told myself all those years too.

I don't know how many Ada projects there are these days, but maybe someone should let those guys know uppercasing their keywords improves readability

Here's another one:http://blog.josephwilk.net/rhetorical-programming/why-are-you-shouting-programmer.html

I might tweet that one to Steven Feuerstein.

I really enjoyed your articles on customising PL/SQL Developer

Thanks!