Re: Make length(char(n)) return 'true' length - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Bruce Momjian
Subject Re: Make length(char(n)) return 'true' length
Date
Msg-id 200402121858.i1CIwu512158@candle.pha.pa.us
Whole thread Raw
In response to Make length(char(n)) return 'true' length  (Gavin Sherry <swm@linuxworld.com.au>)
List pgsql-hackers
Already applied.  Thanks.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Gavin Sherry wrote:
> The attached patch changes the existing behaviour of length(char(n)).
> Currently, this is what happens:
> 
> template1=# select length('blah'::char(10));
>  length
> --------
>      10
> (1 row)
> 
> With this patch:
> 
> template1=# select length('blah'::char(10));
>  length
> --------
>       4
> (1 row)
> 
> This behaviour was proposed by Tom back in November last year. (I have
> tried to handle multibyte correctly but probably haven't -- hence my email
> hackers instead of patches).
> 
> The spec doesn't give us any insight (as far as I can tell) as to how we
> should do it length(char(n)), but the above seems consistent with other
> parts of the code (eg, comparison functions, concatenation).
> 
> SQL200X has these choice paragraphs for those who are interested:
> 
>          <length expression> returns the length of a given character string,
>          as an exact numeric value, in characters or octets according to the
>          choice of function.
> 
> And:
> 
>             the result is the number of explicit or implicit
>               <char length units> in <char length expression>, counted in
>               accordance with the definition of those units in the relevant
>               normatively referenced document.
> 
> I have no idea what the 'normatively referenced document' is, but grep-ing
> through all of SQL200X, 99 and 92 didn't reveal anything too interesting.
> 
> 
> Gavin

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