Re: TOAST (was: BLOB)

Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> writes:
>> I'll  need  alot  of  help  to  make  all  our existing types
>> toastable,

> I'm wondering how transparent all of this will be. What is involved in
> making existing types toastable? How does that affect user defined
> datatypes now and in the future?

I'd like to think that we can fold the TOAST support into the
argument-access macros that I plan to be defining for the fmgr rewrite.
See previous rants on this subject, eg 14-Jun-99, 23-Oct-99 (in
pgsql-hackers archives).

Net result for user-defined-datatype authors will be "if you revise
your routines, they will be easier to read, more portable, and will
support TOASTed values.  If you don't, they'll still work about as
well (or poorly) as they did before."
        regards, tom lane