Re: [HACKERS] casting & type comments

> I agree with you.
> Many databases as SOLID and MySQL don't have CAST statement because 
> they don't need it.

They would need it if they were SQL92 conformant :)

> Unfortunately we need a CAST statement to convert data from one to 
> another type but it is incomplete, seems that CAST can translate only 
> a few types like:
>         int to float
>         float to int
>         int to text
>         float to text
> 
> We can't CAST a char to a varchar, for example.
> It would be interesting al least to have a list of possible 
> conversions.

The only thing lacking is for someone to go through and implement more
of the conversion functions. In conjunction with the improvements I
would like to do for automatic type conversion in the parser, this would
give us a more complete "transparent" conversion capability. CAST uses
the same underlying functions, but allows you to force the resultant
type, overriding any automatic conversion.

I tried selecting a list of all possible conversions, and narrowed it
down to 218 entries. But most are not actual straight conversions...

  select proname, prorettype, proargtypes 
  from pg_proc
  where pronargs = 1 
    and proname not like '%in' 
    and proname not like '%out'

                     - Tom