Re: string_to_array with an empty input string

On 10 August 2010 19:41, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
> Looking through Pavel's string_to_array patch, I notice that the new
> version of string_to_array returns an empty (zero-element) array when
> the input string is of zero length, whereas the traditional version
> returned NULL instead.  The patch fails to emulate the old behavior
> exactly, but rather than fix it, I wonder if we shouldn't make the two
> versions behave the same.  (If we don't have them doing the same thing,
> we're going to have to document the difference...)  The NULL result
> seems a bit peculiar to me, and the empty-array result saner.  Given
> the general inconsistency surrounding empty arrays elsewhere, I think
> this wouldn't be a very problematic change for most users.
>
> Thoughts?
>

I, personally, would expect an empty array output given an empty
input, and a null output for a null input.
--
Thom Brown
Registered Linux user: #516935