Re: Getting the oid of an anyelement

> please, try to look on function pg_typeof

Thanks Pavel. Just what I needed. But you're too late on the orafce
recommendation. I had already written it by the time you posted. I would
have written it any way though because Tom said I couldn't :)

> You would need to write that in C.

Two problems with that Tom. First, and most importantly, I never learned
C. (Otherwise, I'd be helping you guys develop). Second, I've already
determined that I was going to do this and I'm pretty darn hard headed.

So here it is in pl/pgsql.

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION dump(
   p_value     anyelement
) RETURNS text AS
$$
DECLARE
   v_type      TEXT;
   v_oid          INT;
   v_data      BYTEA;
   v_send      TEXT;
BEGIN
   SELECT t.typname, t.oid, t.typsend::text
   INTO v_type, v_oid, v_send
   FROM pg_type t
   WHERE t.oid = pg_typeof($1);

   IF v_send IS NULL OR v_send = '-' THEN
     RAISE EXCEPTION 'Found no send function for %', $1;
   ELSE
     EXECUTE 'SELECT ' || v_send || '(' ||
       quote_literal($1) || '::' || v_type || ')'
     INTO v_data;
   END IF;

   RETURN 'Type=' || v_type ||
     ' OID='      || v_oid ||
     ' Len='      || length(v_data) ||
     ' Data=('    || array_to_string(bytes, ',') || ')'
     FROM (
    SELECT array(
      SELECT get_byte(v_data, i)
      FROM generate_series(0, length(v_data) - 1) i
    ) AS bytes
     ) sub;
END;
$$ LANGUAGE 'plpgsql' IMMUTABLE STRICT;


-- Usage --
VALUES (dump(100)),
(dump(10.1)),
(dump(random())),
(dump('foo'::text)),
(dump(current_date)),
(dump(current_timestamp));

  column1
  --------------------------------------------------------------
  Type=int4 OID=23 Len=4 Data=(0,0,0,100)
  Type=numeric OID=1700 Len=12 Data=(0,2,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,10,3,232)
  Type=float8 OID=701 Len=8 Data=(63,236,234,4,253,128,0,0)
  Type=text OID=25 Len=3 Data=(102,111,111)
  Type=date OID=1082 Len=4 Data=(0,0,13,212)
  Type=timestamptz OID=1184 Len=8 Data=(0,1,22,61,166,87,22,96)