Re: BUG #2694: Memory allocation error when selecting array

Joe Conway <mail(at)joeconway(dot)com> writes:
> Sorry for the slow response -- I'm at the airport just heading home from
> a marathon 30 day business trip.

Yow. Hope you get some time off...

> Tom Lane wrote:
>> "Vitali Stupin" <Vitali(dot)Stupin(at)ria(dot)ee> writes:
>>> The error "invalid memory alloc request size 4294967293" apears when
>>> selecting array of empty arrays:
>>> select ARRAY['{}'::text[],'{}'::text[]];
>>
>> Joe, what do you think about this? Offhand I think that the only
>> workable definition is that this case yields another zero-dimensional
>> array, but maybe there is another choice?

> I think producing another zero-dimensional result is the only way that
> makes sense unless/until we change multidimensional arrays to really be
> arrays of array-datatype elements. Right now they're two different things.

On looking at the code, I notice that this somewhat-related case works:

regression=# select array[null::text[], null::text[]];
array
-------
{}
(1 row)

The reason is that null inputs are just ignored in ExecEvalArray. So
one pretty simple patch would be to ignore zero-dimensional inputs too.
This would have implications for mixed inputs though: instead of

regression=# select array['{}'::text[], '{a,b,c}'::text[]];
ERROR: multidimensional arrays must have array expressions with matching dimensions

you'd get behavior like

regression=# select array[null::text[], '{a,b,c}'::text[]];
array
-----------
{{a,b,c}}
(1 row)

Which of these seems more sane?

regards, tom lane