So I'm a n00b to the open source community, but what needs to happen to get this fix in?
On 14 April 2011 15:13, Kevin Grittner <kevin.gritt...@wicourts.gov> wrote: > Tom Lane <t...@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote: > > "Kevin Grittner" <kevin.gritt...@wicourts.gov> writes: > > >> That means that all three of the databases you tested have > >> extensions to the standard similar to what is being contemplated > >> for PostgreSQL. > > > > Uh, no, it proves they all extend the standard to allow NULL to be > > written without an immediate cast. Mike's test really fails to > > prove anything about the point at hand, which is what data type is > > being imputed to the inner UNION. > > The query run was: > > SELECT 1,null,null > UNION > SELECT 2,3,null > UNION > SELECT 3,null,4 > > It's a bit of a stretch to think that the columns returned from the > final union weren't integer, or that integer is the default type of > the union of two nulls. It's anyone's guess at this point whether > the third column was unknown during the leftmost union and the type > set in the next union, or the set of columns involved in the union > were all evaluated as a group. If they don't have other literals of > unknown type it may be hard to discern the implementation details, > but either I've missed something or we're considering similar user > visible behavior. > > > I don't know those other DBMSes well enough to suggest a test that > > would be definitive on the point, though. We'd need something > > where the choice of datatype is material to the final visible > > result, and at least in PG that requires some knowledge of > > not-very-standard behaviors. > > If the implementation details for the other databases are that hard > to discern, how much do we care *how* they do it? It seems to me > that the important point here is that they don't throw an error on > that query and we do. > > What am I missing? > > -Kevin > -- Jeff Wu Marketing Quant, Atlassian (714) 319-7604
