From: | Joe Conway <mail(at)joeconway(dot)com> |
---|---|
To: | Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> |
Cc: | pgsql-hackers(at)postgreSQL(dot)org |
Subject: | Re: Simplifying OID lookups in the presence of namespaces |
Date: | 2002-04-23 03:35:03 |
Message-ID: | 3CC4D667.4070302@joeconway.com |
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Lists: | pgsql-hackers |
Tom Lane wrote:
> A variant of the idea of inventing functions is to extend the existing
> datatype 'regproc' to do this, and invent also 'regclass', 'regtype',
> 'regoperator' datatypes to do the lookups for the other object kinds.
> I proposed this in a different context last year,
> http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-hackers/2001-08/msg00589.php
> but it seemed too late to do anything with the idea for 7.2.
>
Interesting thread. It seems like the same basic facility could also
support an enum datatype that people migrating from mysql are always
looking for.
> One question is what to do with invalid input. For example, if table
> foo doesn't exist then what should 'foo'::regclass do? The existing
> regproc datatype throws an error, but I wonder whether it wouldn't be
> more useful to return NULL. Any thoughts on that?
NULL makes sense.
>
> Also, for functions and operators the name alone is not sufficient to
> uniquely identify the object. Type regproc currently throws an error
> if asked to convert a nonunique function name; that severely limits its
> usefulness. I'm toying with allowing datatypes in the input string,
> eg
> 'sum(bigint)'::regproc
> but I wonder if this will create compatibility problems. In particular,
> should the regproc and regoperator output converters include datatype
> indicators in the output string? (Always, never, only if not unique?)
I'd be inclined to include datatype always. If you don't, how can you
use this for pg_dump, etc?
Joe
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