Re: incompatible return type for netmask(inet) function between 7.0.3 and 7.1

Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>

From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: pvi@axxent.ca
Cc: Justin Clift <justin@postgresql.org>, pgsql-bugs@postgresql.org
Date: 2001-04-25T16:02:32Z
Lists: pgsql-bugs
"Vadim I. Passynkov" <pvi@axxent.ca> writes:
> I ask now about why logical same functions host(inet) and netmask(inet)
> return different types ?

There was a *long* discussion about this last year, and we concluded
that was the right thing to do.  See the mail archives if you want the
details --- but the key point is that host() text() and abbrev() are
primarily useful to allow non-default display formatting of inet/cidr
values, so they should produce text.  If they produced another inet
value then they'd be unable to control how that value got formatted
for display.

			regards, tom lane