overloading LIKE operator to handle integer + text - Mailing list pgsql-general

Hi all,

I'd like to be able to operate LIKE using as arguments an integer and
a text value.

In postgresql 9.0 the following raises an error:
# SELECT 123 LIKE '123';
ERROR:  operator does not exist: integer ~~ unknown
LINE 1: select 123 like '123';                   ^
HINT:  No operator matches the given name and argument type(s). You
might need to add explicit type casts.

This can be easily solved as the HINT suggests as:
# SELECT 123::text LIKE '123';

But I cannot touch the SQL queries generated by the application, which
generates queries like:
SELECT * from tabname WHERE "id" LIKE '%34%';

Thus I thought I might overload the LIKE operator to be able to handle
the case where args are integer and text.

So I create a function:
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION public.my_like(leftop integer, rightop text)
 RETURNS boolean
 LANGUAGE sql
AS $function$
SELECT $1::text LIKE $2;
$function$

But then I can't create the operator:
#  CREATE OPERATOR "LIKE" (LEFTARG=integer, RIGHTARG=text, PROCEDURE=my_like);
ERROR:  syntax error at or near "("
LINE 1: CREATE OPERATOR "LIKE" (LEFTARG=integer, RIGHTARG=text, PROC...

Any ideas what I'm missing? The doc's examples have a "(".

TIA,
Thalis K.