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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: BPCHAR description in 8.3. Character Types is misleading and incomplete
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2025 14:11:10 -0400
Message-ID: <CAKFQuwbfQ_uP+vot0ys_wo4cS6ZCpn=aZxhVGZ-tt_4HB7CVHw@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAAf8JyLQp-u+nToXQZBasTHg4mj8YuWvX2bPkt_rvrDfHiW0qg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <[email protected]>
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On Thursday, October 16, 2025, Sergei Katkovsky <[email protected]>
wrote:
> Manual addition is not padding, If it were, then VARCHAR would also be
> "blank-padded", because you can manually add trailing blanks to values
> of this type too. But of course it isn't.
>
The spaces added to the end of a bpchar manually can and are considered
“padding” - or “present but lack semantic/value significance”. The reason
they are not padding for varchar is that such spaces are considered part of
the stored value from a semantic perspective.
Think of padding as a noun, not a verb. “The value contains padding”.
Not, “ I am padding the value”.
And yes, this is intended as a way to make the name of the type and its
behavior consistent. You sorta have to want it to work/make sense; not
fight it on minor nuance.
David J.
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Subject: Re: BPCHAR description in 8.3. Character Types is misleading and incomplete
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