RE: RE: VARCHAR to CIDR type cast

> -----Message d'origine-----
> De:    Alex Pilosov [SMTP:alex@pilosoft.com]
> Date:    vendredi 8 juin 2001 19:59
> À:    Nicolas Huillard
> Cc:    'pgsql-general@postgresql.org'
> Objet:    Re: [GENERAL] RE: VARCHAR to CIDR type cast
>
...
>
> However, you say that you have a varchar in database already. As strange
> as it may be, there isn't a cast function from any char type to any
> network type. I'm sure its an oversight, its not hard to write such a
> function based on inet_in....

That's what I'm planning...
But I have not such function code to start with. Is there somewhere
something like that :
* a simple C function with all the PostgreSQL stuff
* that simply call a PG's internal function (that will be cidr_in and
inet_in, for me)

>
> Unfortunately, you cannot use inet_in function to cast a varchar, since
it
> expects as input slightly different data (a null-terminated string),
> while varchar is different (it has length info in beginning). I remember
> there was a discussion about creation of a 'cstring' datatype to support
> such conversions (ie convert xxx to yyy via xxx_out and yyy_in), but I
> don't see any result...Anyone?

OK : the external cast function will only convert the
"length-info-at-the-beginning" string into a "null-terminated" string, then
call cidr_in...
Really simple, in fact, but with a lot of stuff all around, isn't it ?

NH