Hi,
While trying to find a way to get indexed access to a table based on it's xmin, I ran into the following error message that seems a bit misleading: db=# select xmin || ' ' from <anytable> limit 1; ERROR: array value must start with "{" or dimension information Toying a bit more with this result resulted in: megafox=# select xmin || null from <anytable> limit 1; ?column? ------------ {12115328} (1 row) As it seems, the result is actually a correct array: db=# select (xmin || null)[1] from <anytable> limit 1; ?column? ---------- 12115328 (1 row) And comparing the result to for example an int, works. Now I understand that there are no standard casts of xid to something else, but the interpretation if this concatenation surprised at least me ;) Sidenote: since it does solve my problem, I can now build an index based on such an interpretation of xmin, I'm a bit anxious as to how this will be 'fixed', if at all ;) db=# select version(); version ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PostgreSQL 8.2.4 on i686-pc-linux-gnu, compiled by GCC gcc (GCC) 3.4.3 (1 row) -- Best, Frank. ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 7: You can help support the PostgreSQL project by donating at http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate