Jim Nasby <Jim.Nasby@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > I've created a variant data type [1]. It seems to work pretty well, > except for some issues with casting. > Since the idea of the type is to allow storing any other data type, it > creates casts to and from all other types. At first these were all > marked as ASSIGNMENT, but that made using variant with functions quite > cumbersome. With functions that accepted a variant, you still had to > explicitly cast it: > SELECT variant_function( some_field::variant.variant ) FROM some_table; > I was reluctant to make the casts to variant IMPLICIT, but it seems like > it actually works rather well... except for arrays: I suspect that that's only the tip of the iceberg. Remember the mess we had with implicit casts to text? And those only existed for a dozen or so types, not for everything. Every function or operator you define for "variant" is going to be a loaded gun just waiting to shoot your foot off, if you make all those casts implicit. regards, tom lane -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
