Re: character varying == text?

On Mon, 2005-09-19 at 12:54, Alex Turner wrote:
> I thought a char field was supposed to return a padded string, and
> varchar was supposed to return a non-padded string?
>
> I just checked though:
>
> create table test (
> stuff char(10)
> );
>
> insert into test values ('foo');
>
> select stuff || 'lemon' from test;
>
> This returns 'foolemon', not 'foo lemon' as I would have
> expected.
>
> Alex Turner
> NetEconomist
>
> On 9/15/05, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
> CSN <cool_screen_name90001(at)yahoo(dot)com> writes:
> > Just something I was curious about - is there any
> > difference at all between "character varying" (in the
> > SQL spec) without a length specified and "text" (not
> > in the SQL spec)?
>
> The SQL standard doesn't allow "character varying" without a
> length spec.
>
> But yeah, in Postgres they're essentially the same thing.
>
> regards, tom lane
>
> ---------------------------(end of
> broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your
> desire to
> choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes
> do not
> match
>

That's because || is a text operator, not a char operator here. So,
what's really happening is:

select cast(charfield as text)||cast(textfield as text)