Received: from maia.hub.org (unknown [200.46.204.183])
	by mail.postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5C16B6442CC
	for <pgsql-bugs-postgresql.org@mail.postgresql.org>;
	Wed, 13 Jan 2010 13:21:21 -0400 (AST)
Received: from mail.postgresql.org ([200.46.204.86])
	by maia.hub.org (mx1.hub.org [200.46.204.183]) (amavisd-maia,
	port 10024) with ESMTP id 97924-05 for
	<pgsql-bugs-postgresql.org@mail.postgresql.org>;
	Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:21:10 +0000 (UTC)
X-Greylist: from auto-whitelisted by SQLgrey-1.7.6
Received: from gw.wicourts.gov (gwmta.wicourts.gov [165.219.244.99])
	by mail.postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AC29664418C
	for <pgsql-bugs@postgresql.org>; Wed, 13 Jan 2010 13:21:10 -0400 (AST)
Received: from Courts-MTA by gw.wicourts.gov
	with Novell_GroupWise; Wed, 13 Jan 2010 11:21:09 -0600
Message-Id: <4B4DAC9C020000250002E445@gw.wicourts.gov>
X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise Internet Agent 8.0.1 
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 2010 11:21:00 -0600
From: "Kevin Grittner" <Kevin.Grittner@wicourts.gov>
To: "Tom Lane" <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Cc: "Charles O'Farrell" <charleso@gmail.com>,
	 <pgsql-bugs@postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: Substring auto trim
References: 
 <65d71e1c1001130102j5f46299cm87477efcfd0c5a51@mail.gmail.com><65d71e1c1001130102j5f46299cm87477efcfd0c5a51@mail.gmail.com>
	<10878.1263396935@sss.pgh.pa.us>
	<4B4D9A0F020000250002E432@gw.wicourts.gov><4B4D9A0F020000250002E432@gw.wicourts.gov>
	<14774.1263402847@sss.pgh.pa.us>
In-Reply-To: <14774.1263402847@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline
X-Virus-Scanned: Maia Mailguard 1.0.1
X-Spam-Status: No, hits=0.589 tagged_above=-10 required=5
	tests=BAYES_00=-2.599, FH_DATE_PAST_20XX=3.188
X-Spam-Level: 
X-Archive-Number: 201001/116
X-Sequence-Number: 25620

Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
> "Kevin Grittner" <Kevin.Grittner@wicourts.gov> writes:
 
>> This looks like another situation where we're running into
>> trouble because of non-standard behavior when people might be
>> expecting something consistent with other products and the
>> explicit language in the standard.
> 
> If we were to change that so that 'ab  ' were implicitly typed as
> char(4), then we'd start getting bug reports from people
> complaining that "select 'ab' = 'ab  '" yields true.  I remain of
> the opinion that char(n) is so hopelessly brain-damaged that we
> should be very careful to NOT bring it into our mainstream
> behavior.
 
I'm inclined to agree with you, but it does present a barrier to
those migrating.  Are there any "migration considerations" documents
where we should mention this?  Standards compliance notes in the
docs?  Some form of this question seems to be asked frequently....
 
-Kevin