Re: Implicit casts to text

Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> writes:
> The attached patch changes all implicit casts to text to assignment and 
> cleans up the associated regression test damage.  This change has been 
> discussed for the longest time; I propose that we bite the bullet and 
> do it now.

[ I'm assuming this isn't an April-fool item, otherwise never mind ]

The scheme that was in the back of my mind was to do this at the same
time as providing a general facility for casting *every* type to and
from text, by means of their I/O functions if no specialized cast is
provided in pg_cast.  This would improve functionality, thus providing
a salve to the annoyance of users whose code the restriction breaks:
we can certainly argue that it wouldn't do for all those automatically
created casts to be implicit.  At the same time it'd let us eliminate
redundant text-to/from-foo code that's currently in place for some but
not all datatypes.

If we do only the restrictive part of this, it's a harder sale.

So, +1 on the concept, but I think we want a larger patch, and it's
probably too late for that for 8.3.
        regards, tom lane