I was playing around with the enum type today. I was toying around with
a schema to model information about baseball, and decided to create an
enum named position:
tjhart=# create type position as enum('pitcher', 'catcher', 'first
base', 'second base', 'third base', 'short stop', 'left field', 'center
field', 'right field', 'designated hitter', 'pinch hitter');
CREATE TYPE
At first, I thought I had done something wrong:
tjhart=# select 'pitcher'::position;
ERROR: syntax error at or near "position"
LINE 1: select 'pitcher'::position;
It took a bit of fumbling and reading - and closer inspection of the
following before I determined what happened:
tjhart=# \dT+ public.*;
List of data types
Schema | Name | Internal name | Size | Description
--------+------------+---------------+------+-------------
public | "position" | position | 4 |
(1 row)
tjhart=# select 'right field'::"position";
position
-------------
right field
(1 row)
tjhart=#
The example 'mood' enum in the documentation isn't quoted when it's
created.
I noticed that 'position' is a function, but I can create types with
the same name as other functions (abs), and the name isn't quoted. I
also tried creating an enum type with a reserved word:
tjhart=# create type select as enum('foo');
ERROR: syntax error at or near "select"
LINE 1: create type select as enum('foo');
^
I'm just toying around, so this isn't high priority. I'll probably
change the name of the enum to fielding_position for clarity's sake
anyway. But for my own education - what's so unique about the name
'position'?
Tim Hart
