Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
> In any event, considering that EXPLAIN is a utility statement and
> can't be embedded within a query, I'm not sure what benefit we get out
> of returning the data as XML rather than text. This doesn't seem
> likely to change either, based on Tom's comments here.
> http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-hackers/2009-05/msg00969.php
I think you misinterpreted the point of that example, which is that
there already is a way to get the output of EXPLAIN into the system
for further processing. Were this not so, we wouldn't be worrying
at all what data type it claims to have. But since there is a way,
it's important what data type it produces.
regards, tom lane