Greg Stark <gsstark(at)mit(dot)edu> writes:
> Is it just me or are the send/recv strangely asymmetric?
Not all that much: they both return a meaningful result. We cheated a
little bit by allowing the recv functions to modify the state of their
input argument, but they still deliver a valid result object.
> Wouldn't the natural thing to do be to provide the StringInfo buffer with a
> cursor for the type's send function to stuff the bytea into?
Then the send function would return void, which is surely not more
natural. Also, there would be a much larger disparity between the
behaviors of the text and binary output paths.
Anyway it's about three years too late to be debating this ;-)
regards, tom lane