Re: Don't cast away const where possible
Bertrand Drouvot <bertranddrouvot.pg@gmail.com>
From: Bertrand Drouvot <bertranddrouvot.pg@gmail.com>
To: Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org>
Cc: pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org
Date: 2025-12-29T09:01:46Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
Attachments
- v2-0001-Don-t-cast-away-const-where-possible.patch (text/x-diff)
Hi,
On Mon, Dec 22, 2025 at 12:53:03PM +0100, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> On 18.12.25 14:55, Bertrand Drouvot wrote:
> > Some functions are casting away the const qualifiers from their signatures in
> > local variables.
>
> @@ -1304,8 +1304,8 @@ merge_overlapping_ranges(FmgrInfo *cmp, Oid colloid,
> static int
> compare_distances(const void *a, const void *b)
> {
> - DistanceValue *da = (DistanceValue *) a;
> - DistanceValue *db = (DistanceValue *) b;
> + const DistanceValue *da = (const DistanceValue *) a;
> + const DistanceValue *db = (const DistanceValue *) b;
>
> I wonder if the better fix here wouldn't be to get rid of the cast. It's not
> necessary, and without it the compiler would automatically warn about
> qualifier mismatches.
Yeah, that looks better as it provides an extra safety check should the function
signature change.
> These comparison functions seem to be a common
> pattern.
Right, in the attached I applied your proposal on all those places.
Regards,
--
Bertrand Drouvot
PostgreSQL Contributors Team
RDS Open Source Databases
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