Re: Arrays of arrays

On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 4:39 AM, rsmogura <rsmogura(at)softperience(dot)eu> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> May I ask if PostgreSQL supports arrays of arrays directly or indirectly, or
> if such support is planned? I'm interested about pseudo constructs like:
> 1. Directly - (integer[4])[5] - this is equivalent to multidimensional
> array, but may be differently represented on protocol serialization (as
> array with array of elements).
> 2. Indirectly - like create domain d as integer[6], d[11], or by any other
> means.
>
> Currently, I think both of this, are unsupported and array should be only
> base type. I ask about this, to create extend array support in JDBC.

if you want to do serialization of complex structures through the
protocol, your best bet currently is to use composites. for example,
if you want to make array of arrays that are not all the same length
(if they were the same length, why not use regular array?):

create type t (i int[]);
select array[row(array[1,2])::t, row(array[1,2,3,4])::t];

merlin