Re: ERROR: failed to find conversion function from key_vals_nn to record[] - Mailing list pgsql-general

Back to NULLs...

Your code examples ran without error and produced the results that you described. I do understand the fact that, on its face,  the NULLs in the two cases arise for different reasons. But this (still) seems to me to be a distinction without a difference. It rather reminds me of my earlier discussion with you (all) about the distinction (in the world of JSON using "jsonb") between the presence of an object key "k" with the value "JSON null" and the absence of key "k".

The semantic proposition behind the "outer join", as it seems to me, is inextricably bound up with the notion that, in the resulting rows, one table might not have a partner row with the other. (It doesn't matter here which table lacks the partner or if you decide to spell your query so that "right" is the appropriate choice or "left" is—as long as you spell the whole thing correctly to express your intention.) And the "outer join" semantics bring the notion that you simply have no information about the facts that, were it present, the missing row might have given you. Whoever it was on the Committee back in the day, decided in concert to represent this "no information" outcome, in the relation that results for an "outer join", as an "emergent" SQL NULL.

I've talked endlessly about NULL, over the years and face-to-face, with colleagues whose reasoning ability and lucidity I hugely respect. They are unwavering in how they explain NULL. It says simply: "I have absolutely no information about the value that I sought to interrogate." And these experts argue that there are no flavors of the bare fact of having no information. They argue, too, that to say "the value of this variable (or row-column intersection) is NULL" is an oxymoron because the absence of information is not a value—in the purist sense.

(A table without a primary key violoates the rule of proper practice. This is why I found David's terse example too unrealistic to illustrate the issue at hand here.)

Can anybody show me an implementation of a realistic use case that follows proper practice — like "every table must a primary key", "a foreign key must refer to a primary key", and "joins may be made only "on" columns one of which has a PK constraint and the other of which has a FK constraint" — where using a not nullable data type brings a problem that wouldn't occur if the column were defined with a nullable data type and an explicit "not null" constraint?

-- "\d genres" shows "gk" with a "not null" constraint, whether I write it

-- or not. And convention seems to say "don't clutter you code by writing it".

create table genres(

  gk  int   primary key,

  gv  text  not null

  );