Re: So what's an "empty" array anyway? - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Josh Berkus
Subject Re: So what's an "empty" array anyway?
Date
Msg-id 200810211423.50685.josh@agliodbs.com
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: So what's an "empty" array anyway?  ("David E. Wheeler" <david@kineticode.com>)
List pgsql-hackers
> An empty, single-dimension array. But I got the impression from Simon
> that he thought it should be NULL.

I disagree with Simon *if* that's what he's saying.  '{}' isn't equivalent 
to NULL any more than 0 or '' is.  NULL means "I don't know / Doesn't 
apply" wheras '{}' means "purposefully left blank".  It's a defect of the 
Timestamp type (and a few others) that it doesn't have a standard "zero" 
value -- the typical tri-value NULL problem.

I do agree that we ought to support multi-dimensional empty arrays for 
consistency.  However: is '{}' = '{}{}' or not?

-- 
--Josh

Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL
San Francisco


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