Re: What is the name pseudo column

On Wednesday 15 December 2010 1:27:19 pm David Fetter wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 01:50:54PM -0600, Jack Christensen wrote:
> > I was just surprised when accidentally selecting a non-existent name
> > column there was no error -- instead something came back.
> >
> > select accounts.name from accounts limit 1 ->
> > (1,65522,1,0.00,,"2010-07-22 09:57:26.281172-05",2)
> >
> > It appears it tries to return the entire row in an array (but longer
> > rows get truncated).
> >
> > I've searched Google and the PG docs but I haven't had any luck.
>
> What happened here is that you ran into PostgreSQL's "charming" habit
> of using the argument.function notation, so you called the "name"
> function, i.e. the one that casts to name, on the entire row from your
> accounts table.
>
> Cheers,
> David.
>

In the for what is worth department that behavior is going away in 9.1. See here
for a detailed explanation:
http://www.depesz.com/index.php/2010/11/08/waiting-for-9-1-removed-autocast-footgun/#more-1908
--
Adrian Klaver
adrian(dot)klaver(at)gmail(dot)com