I created a function thus:
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION dwarray(anyelement, anyelement)
RETURNS anyarray AS ' SELECT ARRAY[$1,$2]
' LANGUAGE 'sql' IMMUTABLE STRICT;
My hope was to use STRICT to get the following behavior: if either or
both arguments are NULL, I get a NULL. If both are non-NULL, I get an
array. Seems simple enough at first glance. Here's what I get when I try
it out:
regression=# select dwarray(1,2); dwarray
--------- {1,2}
(1 row)
regression=# select dwarray(1,null) is null; ?column?
---------- t
(1 row)
regression=# select dwarray(null,2) is null; ?column?
---------- t
(1 row)
So far so good. But look at this one:
regression=# select dwarray(null,null);
ERROR: cannot determine ANYARRAY/ANYELEMENT type because input is UNKNOWN
This happens because enforce_generic_type_consistency() can't resolve
the return type from the NULLs which are typed as UNKNOWN. This call is
made from ParseFuncOrColumn().
Should ParseFuncOrColumn() bypass the call to
enforce_generic_type_consistency() when all arguments are NULL?
The next item is a bit more strange. Create a table and load some data:
create table t(f1 int, f2 float, f3 float);
insert into t values(1,11.1,21.1);
insert into t values(1,11.2,21.2);
insert into t values(1,11.3,21.3);
insert into t values(1,11.4,null);
insert into t values(1,null,21.5);
insert into t values(1,null,null);
Now call the same function:
regression=# select dwarray(f2,f3) from t;
ERROR: arrays cannot have NULL elements
This call makes it all the way to ExecEvalArray(), which means that
dwarray() is getting evaluated even though it is declared STRICT and has
been called with NULL inputs. That shouldn't happen, should it?
Joe