Re: Cast null to int4 upgrading from Version 7.2

Dwight Emmons wrote:

[Why did you post this to pgsql-patches of all places? it should
properly have gone to pgsql-general, I think]

> My company is currently using version 7.2 and would like to convert to
> the latest version. Unfortunately, version 7.3 implicitly casts a null
> text to an int4. For example:
>
> Create table employee_table (
>
> employee_id integer
>
> employee_name text
>
> employee_address text);
>
> Select * from employee_table where employee_id = ‘’;
>

That's not a NULL at all, it's an empty string. You really need to
understand the difference between the two.

Old editions of postgres did take an empty string literal as a 0 for
ints, modern version quite rightly reject it as invalid. use NULL if you
mean NULL and 0 if you mean 0.

> When executing this select statement in version 7.2 the null will be
> converted to an int zero and not fail. In version 8.2 it fails. We
> have over 20,000 lines of code and do not want to modify and test all
> of it. Has anyone come across this problem? (I am not interested in
> debating the theory of nulls versus zero. I am just trying to avoid
> unnecessary costs).
>
> I am not a DBA, and am looking for explicit instructions to solve this
> problem. Is it possible to create a CAST after upgrading to version
> 8.2? My research tells me the following cast was no longer implemented
> after version 7.2. Will executing the following CAST solve my problem?
>
> CREATE CAST (text AS int4) WITH FUNCTION int4(text);
>
> If so, can someone give me instructions as to executing this statement?
>
> Any help is appreciated….
>


This has nothing to do with casts, I believe - it has to to with what
the input routines accept.

I strongly suspect that renovating your code is your best choice, much
as that might pain you.

cheers

andrew