UCASE call in querySql about databaseconnector

[schuemie]

querySql currently does not alter the variable names, but in all OHDSI packages we now have the convention that after calling querySql we will automatically convert snake_case to camelCase.

If we don't do that, but follow your suggestion that we simply convert camel_case to UPPER_CASE_SNAKE_CASE, the consequence would be that all our R code will now have a mixture of naming conventions. Variables derived from a database would be SNAKE_CASE, while other variables would use camelCase. This gets really complicated when DATABASE_VARIABLES are modified in R. Should they then still be SNAKE_CASE, or camelCase?

The current solution guarantees we have only 1 naming convention in SQL, and only 1 in R.

[vojtechhuser]

The current version calls toupper(). Unless I am reading something wrong.

Do we want this to stay or be removed ?
I think it currently DOES alter the variable names!!!

[chrisknoll]

If it changes, we'll have a significant amount of re-write to do, and apps will break until the rewrite is complete. If we want to make this change, it's going to have to be done in a special branch, and all dependent apps will need to coordinate all their releases based on this change.

[schuemie]

Ah yes, I forgot about the ucase. The reason why I added is that some dbmss convert all names to upper case, some convert all to lower case, and some maintain the case of the original 'create table' statement. At least with the ucase, behavior across platforms is consistent.

Note that SqlRender's snakeCaseToCamelCase function ignores the case of the input. Most code would therefore be unaffected if we remove this.

Could you give me a use case why the ucase should be removed? Remember that this means that behavior will then be different across platforms, and the user will need to deal with that.

[vojtechhuser]

OK. I am glad that I was correct in reading the current code.
I vote for leaving everything as is.

BUT - we should clearly say that users should expect always uppercased output when using DatabaseConnect querySql()