Re: Bug? Netmask of CIDR as TEXT has trailing masklen

nomad(at)null(dot)net writes:
> The following displays as I would expect:
> mark=# select netmask('1.1.1.0/24');
> netmask
> ---------------
> 255.255.255.0
> (1 row)

> However the following does not look right:

> mark=# select netmask('1.1.1.0/24')::text;
> netmask
> ------------------
> 255.255.255.0/32
> (1 row)

> The trailing "/32" should not be there.

Yes, it should be: that is the same as "text(netmask('1.1.1.0/24'))",
and the table of network functions specifically describes text(inet)
as "extract IP address and netmask length as text". If you only want
the IP address, use host(), or possibly abbrev() which I think follows the
output function's rule of suppressing the netmask when it is full-width.

From a system-wide consistency standpoint, it's rather unfortunate that
inet's default conversion to text type does not behave the same as the
inet output function. But it's been like that for umpteen years and
the costs of breaking backwards compatibility would outweigh any benefit
of changing it.

regards, tom lane