Thanks. This is helpful. The only inconsistency
on the postgresql side is the PG_RETURN_CHAR which does return
the one character, not the bpchar. Perhaps a PG_RETURN_CHAR1
or PG_RETURN_CHAR_REALLY would help. I think the only people
who would get caught with it as it is are those writing C functions to return
one character chars, so obviously documentation should be able
to solve the inconsistency as well.
elein
On Sunday 01 December 2002 16:54, Tom Lane wrote:
> elein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > I think I do not know the background on this.
>
> I think it's mostly historical. The one-byte "char" datatype seems to
> date back to Berkeley days, long before there was any concern for SQL
> compliance (it's there in Postgres 4.2). "bpchar" was apparently added
> in Postgres95 in order to provide SQL-like functionality --- but they
> didn't pay any attention to duplicating the SQL name for it. The
> keyword CHARACTER was added later, translating it to the internal name
> bpchar in the parser. Eventually the keyword CHAR was added too, and
> translated.
>
> The real question at this point is what would break if we renamed "char"
> to "char1". Since it's used extensively in the system catalogs, I'm
> sure there would be some unhappiness involved. I am dubious that
> merely avoiding confusion is a sufficient reason to change.
>
> regards, tom lane
>
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