From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org>
cc: pgsql-hackers <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: get rid of Pointer type, mostly
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Comments: In-reply-to Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org>
	message dated "Mon, 24 Nov 2025 11:20:56 +0100"
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Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2025 11:09:29 -0500
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Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org> writes:
> In a previous thread[0], the question was asked, 'Why do we bother with 
> a "Pointer" type?'.  So I looked into get rid of it.
> There are two stages to this.  One is changing all code that wants to do 
> pointer arithmetic to use char * instead of relying on Pointer being 
> char *.  Then we can change Pointer to be void * and remove a bunch of 
> casts.

I'm in favor of that ...

> The second is getting rid of uses of Pointer for variables where you 
> might as well use void * directly.  These are actually not that many.

... but not of that.  In particular, I think it's just fine if
DatumGetPointer and PointerGetDatum take and return Pointer.

			regards, tom lane