jsonb_object() seems to be buggy. jsonb_build_object() is good.

Execute this:

select jsonb_pretty(jsonb_build_object(
'a'::varchar, 1.7::numeric,
'b'::varchar, 'dog'::varchar,
'c'::varchar, true::boolean
))

It produces the result that I expect:

{ +
"a": 1.7, +
"b": "dog",+
"c": true +
}

Notice that the numeric, text, and boolean primitive values are properly rendered with the text value double-quoted and the numeric and boolean values unquoted.

Now execute this supposed functional equivalent:

select jsonb_pretty(jsonb_object(
'{a, 17, b, "dog", c, true}'::varchar[]
))

It is meant to be a nice alternative when you want to build an object (rather than an array) because the syntax is less verbose.

However, it gets the wrong answer, thus:

{ +
"a": "17", +
"b": "dog",+
"c": "true"+
}

Now, the numeric value and the boolean value are double-quoted—in other words, they have been implicitly converted to JSON primitive text values.

Do you agree that this is a bug?

Notice that I see this behavior in vanilla PostgreSQL 11.2 and in YugabyteDB Version 2.0.11.0. See this blogpost:

“Distributed PostgreSQL on a Google Spanner Architecture—Query Layer”
https://blog.yugabyte.com/distributed-postgresql-on-a-google-spanner-architecture-query-layer/

YugabyteDB uses the PostgreSQL source code for its SQL upper half.

Regards, Bryn Llewellyn, Yugabyte