Re: Casting INT4 to BOOL...

From: Sean Chittenden <chitt(at)speakeasy(dot)net>
To: Neil Conway <neilc(at)samurai(dot)com>
Cc: PostgreSQL-patches <pgsql-patches(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Re: Casting INT4 to BOOL...
Date: 2004-10-12 01:54:09
Message-ID: 9B4D76AA-1BF1-11D9-BCB2-000A95C705DC@speakeasy.net
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>> Is there any reason why the backend doesn't cast an unquoted integer
>> to
>> a boolean value?
>
> Can you add some regression tests, please?

:-/ I have zero understanding or knowledge of the regression test
suite. Given the simplicity of the casts, does this really need a
require a regression test? I could've written it as:
"return(PG_GETARG_INT32(0) ? true : false);" and saved a few lines of
code... there's no chance or room for a bug or change in behavior
unless C changes its trinary operator.... and that's not gunna happen
until hell freezes over and we've all taken up skiing.

> The patch treats any non-zero value as "true". Is that the behavior we
> want, or should we only allow "1" as an integer representation of
> "true"? (I'm not sure myself, I just don't think copying C here is
> necessarily the best guide.)

I would posit that this is the desired behavior as it's consistent with
every language I can think of.

> The patch changes the system catalog; it probably ought to also bump
> the
> catalog version number. That also means this probably isn't 8.0
> material, unless we make an unrelated system catalog change in a future
> beta (... and even then, I'm not sure if I'd cal it a bug fix).

System catalog bumps have been coming through with some degree of
regularity so I wasn't worried about providing the patch to bump the
catalog date. -sc

--
Sean Chittenden

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