On Tue, Jul 5, 2016 at 5:37 PM, Tom Lane <t...@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote: > Paul Jungwirth <p...@illuminatedcomputing.com> writes: > > The problem is this (tried on 9.3 and 9.5): > > db=> create type inetrange; > > ERROR: must be superuser to create a base type > > So I'm wondering whether there is any way around this circle without > > being a superuser? > > The only other obvious way to deal with this is to allow the canonical > function to be defined after the range type is created, and then added to > the type via an ALTER TYPE command. But then you have an interval where > the type is not restricted, in which you might store values that aren't > canonical. >
Can the canonical function be definitionally optional but runtime required? That is, have it only be an error to use a type lacking a canonical function? If so I think a usable idiom is that for types that don't want to canonicalize (i.e., presently have a NULL assigned) they would make an explicit declaration by doing something like: CREATE TYPE int4range AS RANGE (subtype = int4, canonical = int4_identity); Now you have a window where the type is incompletely defined and when the missing canonical function is encountered the system balks. At some future point a function can be associated via ALTER TYPE which makes the type completely defined. CREATE TYPE inetrange AS RANGE (subtype = inet, canonical = NULL); ALTER TYPE inetrange SET PROPERTY canonical = inet_canonicalizer; David J.
