Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 18:02:41 -0500
Subject: Re: [SQL] can't cast varchar as integer?
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Cc: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
To: pgsql-sql@postgresql.org
From: Scott Royston <scroyston@mac.com>
In-Reply-To: <1021412859.992.2468.camel@ciderbox>
Message-Id: <B1AEDD10-678E-11D6-B480-000393577144@mac.com>
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Thanks for the replies so far.  I had been using cast(foo::text as 
integer).

To clarify my question, does anyone know *why* I can't cast from varchar 
to integer?  Why should I have to cast to text first?

thanks


On Tuesday, May 14, 2002, at 04:47 PM, David Stanaway wrote:

> On Tue, 2002-05-14 at 13:56, Scott Royston wrote:
>> Mac OSX, postgresql 7.2.1
>>
>> what's the reasoning behind not being able to cast a varchar as
>> integer?  this seems very weird to me:
>>
>> LEDEV=# create table test (foo varchar(5), bar text);
>> LEDEV=# insert into test (foo, bar) values ('123', '123');
>> LEDEV=# select cast(foo as integer) from test;
>> ERROR:  Cannot cast type 'character varying' to 'integer'
>> LEDEV=# select cast(bar as integer) from test;
>>   bar
>> -----
>>   123
>> (1 row)
>
>
> Try this:
>
> scratch=# select foo::text::integer from test;
>  foo
> -----
>  123
> (1 row)
>
>
> Or:
>
> scratch=# select int4(foo) from test;
>  int4
> ------
>   123
> (1 row)
>
>
>
> --
> David Stanaway
>