Re: Add uuid_to_base32hex() and base32hex_to_uuid() built-in functions - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

On Fri, Oct 24, 2025 at 12:17 AM Sergey Prokhorenko
<sergeyprokhorenko@yahoo.com.au> wrote:
>
>
> Masahiko,
>
> Developers will still be able to use the long canonical 'hex' UUID format for compatibility. But the short format is
nota developer choice, but a convention. We mustn't allow a situation where 25% of systems use base32hex, 25% use
Crocksford'sBase32, 25% use base36, and 25% even use erroneously sorted base64. That's a very real nightmare. You, too,
haveevery reason not to want to increase the number of built-in functions in PostgreSQL. 
>
> But here is a solution that I hope will satisfy everyone:
>
> encode('019535d9-3df7-79fb-b466-fa907fa17f9e', 'uuid_to_base32hex') -> 06AJBM9TUTSVND36VA87V8BVJO

Does it mean the first argument is uuid type data and when
'uuid_to_base32hex' is specified as the format the function requires a
uuid data at the first argument? I could not understand the difference
between specifying 'based32hex' and 'uuid_to_base32hex' when encoding
UUID data with base32hex encoding.

> decode('06AJBM9TUTSVND36VA87V8BVJO', 'base32hex_to_uuid') -> 019535d9-3df7-79fb-b466-fa907fa17f9e

Suppose that the decode() takes text data at the first argument and
returns UUID data, the function signature would be decode(text, text)
-> uuid. But we cannot create two functions that have the same name
and the same argument types.

Regards,

--
Masahiko Sawada
Amazon Web Services: https://aws.amazon.com