Re: Changing a column's type

Hadley Willan <hadley(dot)willan(at)deeper(dot)co(dot)nz> writes:
> FUNCTION fn_create_new_item()
> _seq RECORD;
> begin
> SELECT INTO _seq NEXTVAL(''source_sequence'');
> ..do stuff, insert ....
> PERFORM fn_b( _seq.next_value );
> end;

> Call to fn_b breaks because _seq.next_value is of type BIGINT.

Oh, I see. It seems like a rather random coding technique: why'd you
not declare _seq as type int? If you don't want to change that, you
could insert an explicit cast in the PERFORM, too:

PERFORM fn_b( _seq.next_value::int );

There's been some recent talk of allowing fn_b() with an int8 argument
to be resolved as fn_b(int4) --- with a runtime down-conversion --- if
there are no other candidates for fn_b(). But no one's put forward a
convincing argument for that as yet. It might just add confusion.

regards, tom lane