Hello,
Some databases such as SQLServer (try_cast) or BigQuery (safe.cast) offer not-throw conversion. In general, these tend to perform better than custom UDFs that catch exceptions and are also simpler to use. For example, in Postgres, I have a function that does the following:
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION toFloat(str varchar, val real)
RETURNS real AS $$
BEGIN
RETURN case when str is null then val else str::real end;
EXCEPTION WHEN OTHERS THEN
RETURN val;
END;
$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql COST 1 IMMUTABLE;
I couldn’t find a reference to such capabilities in Postgres and wondered if I missed it, and if not, is there any plan to add such a feature?
Thank you!
Laurent Hasson.
