On Thursday, October 16, 2025, Jeff Davis <
pgsql@j-davis.com> wrote:
On Thu, 2025-10-16 at 08:36 -0400, David G. Johnston wrote:
> A given value has a finite length and there is just no restriction on
> what that length is. All trailing spaces in the input are considered
> padding for purposes of comparison i.e., manually padding is added by
> the user as opposed to the system.
I see -- so it means that the padding came from somewhere else (not the
type).
Yeah, your original conclusion this couldn’t be labeled blank-padded seems to have drawn this confusion. If padding is indeed noun-like and not verb-like then calling it blank-padded works ok. The clarifying text is then just fine as-is: the comment about any included spaces are semantically insignificant ties back to calling those spaces “padding” and thus the type itself remains “blank-padded” in both the and N and non-N cases. There isn’t a way to make “trimmed” a noun here but those spaces are not actually removed/trimmed away.
In short, I would change trimmed to padded in the table.
I’d also add “padding” here just to actually use the word in its noun form.
…but trailing spaces are [stored as] semantically insignificant [padding].
(I thought also about trying to remove the phrase “semantically [in]significant” altogether but at the moment would rather not touch the following paragraph.)
If we really have to drive the point home I'd also add a footnote marker to “blank-padded” and then say in the footnote text (right below the table):
A blank-padded value contains zero or more trailing spaces which are ignored for comparison purposes. These spaces are also called “semantically insignificant”.
David J.
