Chris KL recently pointed out to me that we currently don't raise an
error when attempting to cast a zero-length string to a float:
nconway=# select ''::float8;float8
-------- 0
(1 row)
nconway=# select ''::float4;float4
-------- 0
(1 row)
Similarly for oid:
nconway=# select ''::oid;oid
----- 0
(1 row)
Whereas int and numeric reject zero-length strings:
nconway=# select ''::int;
ERROR: invalid input syntax for integer: ""
nconway=# select ''::numeric;
ERROR: invalid input syntax for type numeric: ""
So, should we fix oid and float?
I'm leaning toward "yes", for the sake of consistency and
sanity. However, we were bitten by backward-compatibility concerns
when we made a similar change to the "int" input rules during the 7.3
cycle, so I'm open to other suggestions.
-Neil
