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From: "Joel Burton" <joel@joelburton.com>
To: "Scott Royston" <scroyston@mac.com>, <pgsql-sql@postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: can't cast varchar as integer?
Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 17:20:20 -0400
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> what's the reasoning behind not being able to cast a varchar as 
> integer?  this seems very weird to me:
> 
> 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)

Interesting. You can have an intermediate to-text cast:

select cast ( cast ( cast ('123' as varchar) as text) as integer);