Re: SELECT CAST(123 AS char) -> 1 - Mailing list pgsql-general

From Alvaro Herrera
Subject Re: SELECT CAST(123 AS char) -> 1
Date
Msg-id 20080213165647.GG11314@alvh.no-ip.org
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: SELECT CAST(123 AS char) -> 1  (Ken Johanson <pg-user@kensystem.com>)
Responses Re: SELECT CAST(123 AS char) -> 1
List pgsql-general
Ken Johanson wrote:
> Alvaro Herrera wrote:
>> If you are arguing that the spec's definition of the CHARACTER type is
>> not really very useful, I think you are going to find a lot of
>> supporters.  You can send your complaints to the SQL committee; but
>> then, it is unlikely that this is going to change anytime soon because
>> of the fear of breaking backwards compatibility.
>
> Agreed. There may be allot of users who in the case of CAST, need to
> extract the leftmost digit, and for those database and their users that
> do this by default, it would cause harm.

Right.  And those that don't need that are certainly using a cast to
CHARACTER VARYING.

--
Alvaro Herrera                                http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support

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