public inbox for [email protected]  
help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: Tom Lane <[email protected]>
To: Adrian Klaver <[email protected]>
Cc: Marcos Pegoraro <[email protected]>
Cc: pgsql-general <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Trying to understand pg_get_expr()
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2026 17:04:50 -0400
Message-ID: <[email protected]> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]>
	<CAB-JLwZdyUfnC047MzV9woskWH2dToNJEudR34AD8WprEn8Cig@mail.gmail.com>
	<[email protected]>
	<CAB-JLwbwKi6q_fG7ByGRJe-L+m9Nx+WHiTP0qhEw7qKzv37QQA@mail.gmail.com>
	<[email protected]>

Adrian Klaver <[email protected]> writes:
>     adrelid    | pg_typeof |        pg_get_expr
>  --------------+-----------+---------------------------
>   default_test | text      | 'test'::character varying
>   default_test | text      | 0

> Why is the second case not?:
> '0'::integer

PG's parser automatically attributes type integer to an unadorned
integer literal, so no cast is necessary there, and pg_get_expr
doesn't add one.  But an unadorned string like 'test' does not
have a determinate type (well, it has type "unknown", but that
is an implementation artifact).  We emit a cast construct to show
what type the constant was resolved as.

The bigger picture here is that pg_get_expr relies on the same
code that is used for purposes like dumping views.  We want the
output to be such that subexpressions of a view will certainly
be parsed as the same type they were interpreted as before.

			regards, tom lane






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]
  Subject: Re: Trying to understand pg_get_expr()
  In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>

* 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