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Message-ID: <20060306101812.89563.qmail@web54308.mail.yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 02:18:12 -0800 (PST)
From: Emil Rachovsky <zsevgymko@yahoo.com>
Subject: problem with overloading the "coalesce" function
To: "pgsql-general@postgresql.org" <pgsql-general@postgresql.org>
Cc: "pgsql-sql@postgresql.org" <pgsql-sql@postgresql.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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 Hi,
I am trying to overload the "coalesce" function to
accept an integer and a string. Here it is :

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION "coalesce"(a int4, b
"varchar")
  RETURNS "varchar" AS
$BODY$
begin
 if (a is null ) then 
   return b;
 else 
  return cast(a as varchar(15));
end if;
end
$BODY$
  LANGUAGE 'plpgsql' VOLATILE;
ALTER FUNCTION "coalesce"(a int4, b "varchar") OWNER
TO postgres;

I have added it to pg_catalog, but still I cant't use
it, I get an error on the second parameter, apparently
the function gets lost at some point. Any additional
steps I need to complete?

Thanks in advance,
Emil

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