Re: Datum as struct

On 08.08.25 22:55, Tom Lane wrote:
> FWIW, I don't love the "DummyDatum" name either.  Maybe InvalidDatum?

I specifically did not use InvalidDatum because, for example, the result 
of Int32GetDatum(0) is by no means "invalid".  Maybe something like 
NullDatum or VoidDatum?

A few related thoughts:

The calls to PG_RETURN_DUMMY() in my patch are in set-returning 
functions.  I thought maybe a real API macro would be nice here, like 
PG_RETURN_SRF_DONE().

Many changes are in the arguments of on_*_exit() functions.  I always 
thought it was weird layering to use Datum at that level.  I mean, would 
on_proc_exit(foo, Int64GetDatum(val)) even work correctly on 32-bit 
platforms?

Another common coding pattern is something like

if (isnull)
{
     d = (Datum) 0;
     n = true;
}
else
{
     d = actualvalue;
     n = false;
}

sometimes with a comment /* keep compiler quiet */ or /* redundant, but 
safe */.

I wonder whether it would in general be better to not initialize "d" in 
the first case, allowing perhaps static analyzers to detect invalid 
accesses later on.  On the other hand, this might confuse regular 
compilers into warnings, as the comments suggest.

So maybe finding some higher-level changes in these areas could reduce 
the churn in the remaining patch significantly.