Re: Bug: var_is_nonnullable() gives wrong results for old/new in RETURNING

Richard Guo <guofenglinux@gmail.com>

From: Richard Guo <guofenglinux@gmail.com>
To: Tender Wang <tndrwang@gmail.com>
Cc: SATYANARAYANA NARLAPURAM <satyanarlapuram@gmail.com>, PostgreSQL Hackers <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>
Date: 2026-04-10T05:48:34Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
On Fri, Apr 10, 2026 at 10:30 AM Tender Wang <tndrwang@gmail.com> wrote:
> SATYANARAYANA NARLAPURAM <satyanarlapuram@gmail.com> 于2026年4月10日周五 02:43写道:
> > It appears the optimizer incorrectly simplifies old.<col> IS NULL to FALSE in RETURNING clauses when the underlying column has a NOT NULL constraint.
> >
> > The issue is that var_is_nonnullable() in clauses.c doesn't check Var.varreturningtype. It sees a NOT NULL column and concludes the Var can never be NULL.
> > But this assumption is wrong for old.* and new.* references. Because the old tuple doesn't exist on INSERT, and the new tuple doesn't exist on DELETE

Nice catch.

> Yes,  the current var_is_nonnullable() ignores this case.  The
> attached patch seems ok to me.

The patch also LGTM.  I also checked if has_notnull_forced_var() has
the same issue, but it doesn't: Vars with non-default returning type
only appear in the RETURNING clause, so they never show up in WHERE/ON
clauses.

- Richard



Commits

Same data as JSON: GET /api/v1/messages/:b64id/commits the thread's linked commits as JSON, with link sources. API reference →
  1. Fix var_is_nonnullable() to account for varreturningtype