Re: Allowing postgresql to accept 0xff syntax for data types that it makes sense for?

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From: pgsql-general-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org [mailto:pgsql-general-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org] On Behalf Of Tom Lane
Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2015 1:57 PM
To: Bill Moran
Cc: pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Allowing postgresql to accept 0xff syntax for data types that it makes sense for?

Bill Moran <wmoran(at)potentialtech(dot)com> writes:
> My other question: is there a specific reason why PostgreSQL doesn't
> support this syntax, aside from "nobody has bothered to add such
> support"? Because I'm considering writing a patch to Postgres and
> submitting it, but I'm not going to go down that path if there's a
> specific reason why supporting this syntax would be _bad_. Personally,
> I feel like it would be a good thing, as it seems like a lot of other
> database systems support it, and even though it's not ANSI, it's pretty much the de-facto standard.

How many is "a lot", and do any of the responsible vendors sit on the SQL standards committee?

One large concern about doing anything like this is whether future versions of the SQL standard might blindside us with some not-terribly-compatible interpretation of that syntax. If we do something that is also in Oracle or DB2 or one of the other big boys, then we can probably rely on the assumption that they'll block anything really incompatible from becoming standardized ;-).

OTOH, if the actual meaning of "a lot" is "MySQL", I'd be pretty worried about this scenario.

regards, tom lane

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