I'm working on a project converting a bunch of code from another database system to PostgreSQL. One of the issues is that the previous system accepted integers and binary data in the same hex format as C ... i.e. 0xff I understand that the proper way to handle this in postgres is x'ff', but the problem is that a large number of #define values use the 0xff syntax and these macros are used both in C code, as well as in SQL. The simple fact is that a LOT of code does this, and correcting it all and ensuring that the modified code is correct is a BIG job. Just to clarify some of the complexity: there is about 80,000 lines of PL/PGSQL code that contains these macros, then is run through the C preprocessor to substitute actual values for them before being loaded into Postgres. Obviously, there are many options for fixing this. One of those options is modifying PostgreSQL to accept the 0xff syntax ... and evaluating that option is the reason for my post. So, one of my questions is: does anyone have an existing simple answer on how to fix this? My other question: is there a specific reason why PostgreSQL doesn't support this syntax, aside from "nobody has bothered to add such support"? Because I'm considering writing a patch to Postgres and submitting it, but I'm not going to go down that path if there's a specific reason why supporting this syntax would be _bad_. Personally, I feel like it would be a good thing, as it seems like a lot of other database systems support it, and even though it's not ANSI, it's pretty much the de-facto standard. -- Bill <wmoran@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general
