To: David Fetter <david@fetter.org>
cc: Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@commandprompt.com>,
	Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>,
	Kevin Grittner <kevin.grittner@wicourts.gov>, Thom Brown <thom@linux.com>,
	PostgreSQL-development <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: Couple document fixes 
In-reply-to: <20110906042218.GM3924@fetter.org> 
References: <20110905232916.GK3924@fetter.org>
	<201109052333.p85NX9F26135@momjian.us>
	<20110906000509.GL3924@fetter.org>
	<1315271205-sup-7449@alvh.no-ip.org>
	<20110906042218.GM3924@fetter.org>
Comments: In-reply-to David Fetter <david@fetter.org>
	message dated "Mon, 05 Sep 2011 21:22:18 -0700"
Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2011 11:19:45 -0400
Message-ID: <7024.1315322385@sss.pgh.pa.us>
From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>

David Fetter <david@fetter.org> writes:
> On Mon, Sep 05, 2011 at 10:07:29PM -0300, Alvaro Herrera wrote:
>> What would be the point?

> Removing the legacy "char" type, per original post. :)

Removing it is the wrong solution.

The idea of renaming it to char1 might be an appropriate balance of pain
versus benefit.  Or perhaps not; I'd want to see a proposed patch before
committing to doing anything here.

> We've made changes as big on aesthetic grounds before, and if the
> change results in an enum type optimized for space efficiency, that's
> all to the good.

That's a pipe dream.  You can't use enums in catalogs that underlie the
enum implementation.  Possibly you could kluge something so that there
are phony entries in pg_enum reflecting the hard-wired values that the C
code uses, but I entirely fail to see any point in such a thing.

			regards, tom lane