I've committed changes to allow more automatic type conversion. Lots of
files were touched, mostly in backend/parser/.

The new code tries to do the right thing for conversions, and does
handle cases which were problematic before:

-- there isn't a floating point factorial operator...
tgl=> select (4.3 !);
?column?
--------
      24
(1 row)

-- there isn't an integer exponentiation operator...
tgl=> select 2 ^ 3;
?column?
--------
       8
(1 row)

-- concatenation on unspecified types didn't used to work...
tgl=> select '123' || '456';
?column?
--------
  123456
(1 row)

-- didn't used to correctly truncate strings into tables...
tgl=> create table cc (c char(4));
CREATE
tgl=> insert into cc select '123' || '456';
INSERT 268073 1
tgl=> select * from cc;
   c
----
1234
(1 row)

So, it should fix longstanding issues. However, the main goal should be
that it doesn't do the WRONG thing at any time. So, test away and post
any problems or issues that come up; we have lots of time to fix things
before v6.4.

One change in behavior is that I defined (for builtin types) the concept
of a "preferred type" in each category/class of types (e.g. float8 is
the preferred type for numerics, datetime is the preferred type for
date/times, etc.). And, unspecified types are preferentially resolved to
use this preferred type. So, the following behavior has changed:

-- this is now done as a float8 calculation, used to be float4...
tgl=> select '123.456'::float4 * '1.99999999999';
        ?column?
----------------
246.912002562242
(1 row)

Before, unknown types, such as the second string above, were resolved to
be the same type as the other type, if available. So the calculation
would have been truncated at ~7 decimal places.

The good thing about this is that the behavior of the above is now the
same as if the second string was specified without the quotes:

tgl=> select '123.456'::float4 * 1.99999999999;
        ?column?
----------------
246.912002562242
(1 row)

where before it was evaluated differently in the two cases.

Anyway, try things out, and I'll be writing this up for the docs. Will
post the topics on hackers along the way...

I haven't yet changed the regression tests to reflect the new behavior,
just in case it needs to be different. Also, all regression tests pass
with the only differences as mentioned above. btw, the code still has
lots of cleanup needed, moving subroutines around and taking out defunct
code. But will do that later.

Have fun.

                  - Tom

Sun, 10 May 1998 00:14:11 +0000
"Thomas G. Lockhart" <lockhart@alumni.caltech.edu>
Automatic type conversion
> I've committed changes to allow more automatic type conversion.

btw, this requires a dump/reload...

                    - Tom

Sun, 10 May 1998 02:13:48 +0000
"Thomas G. Lockhart" <lockhart@alumni.caltech.edu>
Re: [HACKERS] Automatic type conversion
On Sun, May 10, 1998 at 12:14:11AM +0000, Thomas G. Lockhart wrote:
> -- there isn't a floating point factorial operator...
> tgl=> select (4.3 !);
> ?column?
> --------
>       24
> (1 row)

Am I the only one that thinks the above is wrong?  4.3 factorial is
mathematically undefined and does NOT equal 24.

I don't think the automatic type conversion should automatically
truncate values without at least a warning.  Preferably I'd like to be
forced to do the conversion myself for cases like the above.

-- 
Dave Chapeskie <dchapes@ddm.on.ca>, DDM Consulting

Sun, 10 May 1998 02:23:22 -0400
Dave Chapeskie <dchapes@ddm.on.ca>
Re: [HACKERS] Automatic type conversion
Dave Chapeskie wrote:
> 
> On Sun, May 10, 1998 at 12:14:11AM +0000, Thomas G. Lockhart wrote:
> > -- there isn't a floating point factorial operator...
> > tgl=> select (4.3 !);
> > ?column?
> > --------
> >       24
> > (1 row)
> 
> Am I the only one that thinks the above is wrong?  4.3 factorial is
> mathematically undefined and does NOT equal 24.

Just put the gamma function in there and assume the argument is always a
float. A decent gamma function algorithm should make a special case for
integers.

--Gene

Sun, 10 May 1998 08:07:56 +0000
"Eugene Selkov Jr." <selkovjr@mcs.anl.gov>
Re: [HACKERS] Automatic type conversion
> > -- there isn't a floating point factorial operator...
> > tgl=> select (4.3 !);
> > ?column?
> > --------
> >       24
> > (1 row)
> 
> Am I the only one that thinks the above is wrong?  4.3 factorial is
> mathematically undefined and does NOT equal 24.
> 
> I don't think the automatic type conversion should automatically
> truncate values without at least a warning.  Preferably I'd like to be
> forced to do the conversion myself for cases like the above.

Yes, I included this one to provoke discussion :) 

Postgres has type extensibility, so the algorithms for matching up types
and functions need to be very general. In this case, there is only one
function defined for factorial, and it takes an integer argument. But of
course Postgres now says "ah! I know how to make an int from a float!"
and goes ahead and does it. If there were more than one function defined
for factorial, and if none of the arguments matched a float, then
Postgres would conclude that there are too many functions to choose from
and throw an error.

One way to address this is to never allow Postgres to "demote" a type;
i.e. Postgres would be allowed to promote arguments to a "higher" type
(e.g. int->float) but never allowed to demote arguments (e.g.
float->int). But this would severely restrict type matching. I wanted to
try the more flexible case first to see whether it really does the
"wrong thing"; in the case of factorial, the only recourse for someone
wanting to calculate a factorial from a float is to convert to an int
first anyway.

Or, again for this factorial case, we can implement a floating point
factorial with either the gamma function (whatever that is :) or with an
explicit routine which checks for non-integral values.

Could also print a notice when arguments are being converted, but that
might get annoying for most cases which are probably trivial ones.

                     - Tom

Sun, 10 May 1998 15:35:53 +0000
"Thomas G. Lockhart" <lockhart@alumni.caltech.edu>
Re: [HACKERS] Automatic type conversion
Tom: 
> One way to address this is to never allow Postgres to "demote" a type;
> i.e. Postgres would be allowed to promote arguments to a "higher" type
> (e.g. int->float) but never allowed to demote arguments (e.g.
> float->int). But this would severely restrict type matching. I wanted to
> try the more flexible case first to see whether it really does the
> "wrong thing"; in the case of factorial, the only recourse for someone
> wanting to calculate a factorial from a float is to convert to an int
> first anyway.

I think that never demoting is the best way to procede here. If the type
resolution search is too "thorough" it can be very confusing (see c++ for
example). As it is the interaction of SQL and the type system can create
surprises. Promoting both "up" and "down" is likely to make it very hard
to figure out what any given query will do.

-dg

David Gould            dg@illustra.com           510.628.3783 or 510.305.9468 
Informix Software  (No, really)         300 Lakeside Drive  Oakland, CA 94612
"Of course, someone who knows more about this will correct me if I'm wrong,
 and someone who knows less will correct me if I'm right."
               --David Palmer (palmer@tybalt.caltech.edu)

Mon, 11 May 1998 11:33:44 -0700 (PDT)
dg@illustra.com (David Gould)
Re: [HACKERS] Automatic type conversion