plperl vs LC_COLLATE (was Re: Possible savepoint bug)

Michael Paesold <mpaesold@gmx.at> writes:
> This is a theory. The whole database was loaded using pg_restore, I still 
> have the original dump so I will have a look at the dump now. The database 
> actually contains some plperl functions.

OK, I think I have reproduced the problem.  initdb in C locale, then
start postmaster with LANG=en_US.UTF-8 in its environment.  Then:

z1=# create language plperl;
CREATE LANGUAGE
z1=# select 'enum.server_task_log.status.RUNNING'::varchar < 'enum.server_task_log.status.keys'::varchar;?column?
----------t                           -- correct result for C locale
(1 row)

z1=# \c z1
You are now connected to database "z1".
z1=# SET check_function_bodies = false;
SET
z1=# create or replace function perlf() returns text as $$
z1$# return 'foo';
z1$# $$ language plperl;
CREATE FUNCTION
z1=# select 'enum.server_task_log.status.RUNNING'::varchar < 'enum.server_task_log.status.keys'::varchar;?column?
----------f                          -- WRONG result for C locale
(1 row)

So the mere act of defining a plperl function, even with
check_function_bodies = false, is sufficient to send control through
that bit of libperl code that does setlocale(LC_ALL, "").  Ugh.
This is much worse than I thought.

The reason I had not seen it before is that lc_collate_is_c caches its
result, which means that if you do any text/varchar comparisons before
first invoking libperl, you won't see any misbehavior (at least not when
you started in C locale).  The reconnect in the middle of the above test
sequence is essential to reproduce the failure.

We were talking last week about forcing the LANG/LC_ environment
variables to match our desired settings within the postmaster.
I think this example raises the priority of doing that by several
notches :-(

In the meantime, Michael, I'd suggest modifying your postmaster start
script to force LANG=C, and then reindexing all indexes you have on
text/varchar/char columns.  That should get you out of the immediate
problem and prevent it from recurring before we have a fix.  (The
system catalogs should be OK because they use "name" which is not
locale-sensitive.)
        regards, tom lane