public inbox for [email protected]
help / color / mirror / Atom feedFrom: David G. Johnston <[email protected]>
To: Sergei Katkovsky <[email protected]>
Cc: Tom Lane <[email protected]>
Cc: Jeff Davis <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: BPCHAR description in 8.3. Character Types is misleading and incomplete
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2025 08:36:50 -0400
Message-ID: <CAKFQuwZJhDgg_WqWq7HMAUd7bGiU4r-VFVXn72Hfq9VQhRKZMw@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAAf8JyJNWf9BrpBJNpqEwTM7orbR48XenoALAE8icA68kaC5Wg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <[email protected]>
<[email protected]>
<[email protected]>
<CAAf8JyJNWf9BrpBJNpqEwTM7orbR48XenoALAE8icA68kaC5Wg@mail.gmail.com>
On Thursday, October 16, 2025, Sergei Katkovsky <[email protected]>
wrote:
> > I don't understand why any of these variants are better than the
> > original wording "blank-padded". That has the non-negligible
> > advantage of corresponding to the type name, and furthermore
> > appears in many other places in our docs and source code.
>
> The wording for BPCHAR (not to be confused with BPCHAR(N) is already
> "blank-trimming", not "blank-padded". And "blank-padded" is probably
> the least correct wording variant for BPCHAR, because this type has
> unlimited length and it's impossible to pad to the infinity.
A given value has a finite length and there is just no restriction on what
that length is. All trailing spaces in the input are considered padding
for purposes of comparison i.e., manually padding is added by the user as
opposed to the system.
So bpchar(n) is automatically blank padded to a total length for a value of
n characters. bpchar also has padding blanks but they must be manually
inserted during value creation.
I would leave the note of blank-padded for both and just point out the
automatic vs manual distinction.
David J.
reply
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Reply to all the recipients using the --to and --cc options:
reply via email
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Subject: Re: BPCHAR description in 8.3. Character Types is misleading and incomplete
In-Reply-To: <CAKFQuwZJhDgg_WqWq7HMAUd7bGiU4r-VFVXn72Hfq9VQhRKZMw@mail.gmail.com>
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
This inbox is served by agora; see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox