Re: [HACKERS] A small problem with the new inet and cidr types

>
> > * redesign the function call interface to handle NULLs better
>
> I was planning on looking at this for v6.5, at least in the context of
> trying to solve the problem of returning NULL for pass-by-value types.
>
> We should have some discussion of pass-by-value vs. pass-by-reference
> and whether it is worth having both mechanisms for common data types. As
> it is, functions which return int2 or int4 cannot return NULL because
> there is no way to represent that with these types. I was thinking of
> implementing true smallint/integer pass-by-reference types to clean this
> up.

    Actually  they  can  -  but  only  if  they  take exactly one
    argument.  fmgr_c()  calls  those  ones  with  an  additional
    isNull bool pointer.

    The  mess  is,  that we have different entry points to call a
    function, some of them pass information about NULL  and  some
    not.  What I had in mind was to finally have one single entry
    point that handles NULL for any argument and for  the  return
    value.


Jan

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