>________________________________
> From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
>To: Glyn Astill <glynastill@yahoo.co.uk>
>Cc: "pgsql-general@postgresql.org" <pgsql-general@postgresql.org>
>Sent: Wednesday, 27 June 2012, 14:31
>Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Type Name / Internal name returned by pg_catalog.format_type with/without prepended schema
name?
>
>Glyn Astill <glynastill@yahoo.co.uk> writes:
>> I was wondering if anyone could shed some light with type names returned by pg_catalog.format_type sometimes having
theschema name prepended, and sometimes not? I'm calling it like format_type(pg_type.oid, NULL) .
>
>General case: the schema name is used if the type wouldn't be found
>without it, according to your current search_path.
>
>There are some specific built-in types for which schema names are
>never used, because their names are actually keywords according to SQL
>(which a fortiori means there's no ambiguity on the lookup side).
>
However none of that explains why one of the types is returned with the schema name and the other is not, both are in
thesame schema which is in the current search_path.