Horton

Re: get rid of Pointer type, mostly

Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org>

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From: Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org>
To: Chao Li <li.evan.chao@gmail.com>, David Geier <geidav.pg@gmail.com>
Cc: Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>, pgsql-hackers <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>
Date: 2025-12-08T11:14:28Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers

Commits

Same data as JSON: GET /api/v1/messages/:b64id/commits the thread's linked commits as JSON, with link sources. API reference →

  1. Remove no longer needed casts from Pointer

  2. Remove no longer needed casts to Pointer

  3. Change Pointer to void *

  4. Don't rely on pointer arithmetic with Pointer type

  5. Use more appropriate DatumGet* function

  6. Remove useless casts to Pointer

Attachments

On 08.12.25 11:53, Chao Li wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Dec 8, 2025, at 18:25, David Geier <geidav.pg@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Peter,
>>> I went with your proposal of GinExtraPointer. See attached patch. It's
>>> based on the series of patches from Peter's initial mail. I've included
>>> the removal of the Pointer typedef in the same patch.
>>
>> It seems to me that we reached agreement. Are you planning to still
>> apply these patches?
>>
> 
> Basically I am not against this patch, as 756a43689324b473ee07549a6eb7a53a203df5ad has done similar changes.
> 
> What I want to understand is that why do we delete Pointer and add GinExtraPointer?
> 
> ```
> -/*
> - * Pointer
> - *		Variable holding address of any memory resident object.
> - *		(obsolescent; use void * or char *)
> - */
> -typedef void *Pointer;
> ```
> 
> And
> ```
> +typedef void *GinExtraPointer;
> ```
> 
> They both are underlying “void *”. Are we expecting to improve code readability? More specific maybe?

I was planning to proceed with Dagfinn's patch set.  Here is what is 
currently remaining of the patch series.  I haven't fully processed 
everyone's comments in this thread, so they might not be reflected in 
these patches.

There is some interference from the changes from palloc to 
palloc_object/_array/etc., and I was also trying to figure out what to 
do with the commented out code, hence the delay.