Re: Variable-length Types

Folks,
I'm a bit confused on custom type declarations, actually.  I'd like to
create a custom type for American phone numbers, such that:

It takes a string and returns something that looks like Varchar(22);
If someone types in 10 digits, it returns output like (###) ###-####
If a user enters 7 digits, it picks a default area code and returns
(415) ###-####,
and if they type more than 10 digits or enter any digits after an "x", 
they get (###) ###-#### x###


My questions are as follows:

1. Can I reference a custom function (phoneformat) in a type definition?

2. If 1. is "no", is there a way to do the above without programming the
type in C?

3. What sort of trouble am I going to get into trying to pull data from
a custom type into an external interface (i.e. PHP4)?  

Thanks for your thoughts!
                -Josh Berkus

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