Scott Marlowe wrote: > On Mon, 2005-09-19 at 12:54, Alex Turner wrote: >> I thought a char field was supposed to return a padded string, and >> varchar was supposed to return a non-padded string? >> >> I just checked though: >> >> create table test ( >> stuff char(10) >> ); >> >> insert into test values ('foo'); >> >> select stuff || 'lemon' from test; >> >> This returns 'foolemon', not 'foo lemon' as I would have >> expected. >> >> Alex Turner >> NetEconomist >> >> On 9/15/05, Tom Lane <tgl@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> CSN <cool_screen_name90001@xxxxxxxxx> writes: >> > Just something I was curious about - is there any >> > difference at all between "character varying" (in the >> > SQL spec) without a length specified and "text" (not >> > in the SQL spec)? >> >> The SQL standard doesn't allow "character varying" without a >> length spec. >> >> But yeah, in Postgres they're essentially the same thing. >> >> regards, tom lane >> >> ---------------------------(end of >> broadcast)--------------------------- >> TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your >> desire to choose an index scan if your joining >> column's datatypes do not match >> > > That's because || is a text operator, not a char operator > here. So, what's really happening is: > > select cast(charfield as text)||cast(textfield as text) > > > > ---------------------------(end of > broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster is this the expected result? i.e. in the past was the result incorrect? or is there a configuration param that controls this? test=# select stuff || 'lemon' from test1; ?column? ----------------- foo lemon (1 row) test=# \d test1 Table "test1" Column | Type | Modifiers --------+---------------+----------- stuff | character(10) | test=# select version(); version ------------------------------------------------------------- PostgreSQL 7.2.3 on i686-pc-linux-gnu, compiled by GCC 2.96 (1 row) ---- test=# select stuff || 'lemon' from test; ?column? ---------- foolemon (1 row) test=# \d test Table "public.test" Column | Type | Modifiers --------+---------------+----------- stuff | character(10) | test=# select version(); version ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------- ---------- PostgreSQL 8.0.1 on i686-pc-mingw32, compiled by GCC gcc.exe (GCC) 3.4.2 (mingw -special) (1 row) reid ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 3: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq