Re: [pgsql-advocacy] Oracle buys Innobase

"Guy Rouillier" <guyr@masergy.com> writes:

> Doug Quale wrote:
>>
>> # select 'a'::char(8) = 'a '::char(8);
>>  ?column?
>> ----------
>>  t
>> (1 row)
>>
>> Trailing blanks aren't significant in fixed-length strings, so the
>> question is whether Postgresql treats comparison of varchars right.
>
> This result is being misinterpreted.
>
> select length('a'::char(8)) ==> 1
> select length('a '::char(8)) ==> 1
>
> So it isn't that the two different strings are comparing equal.  The
> process of casting them to char(8) is trimming the blanks, so by the
> time they become fixed length strings, they are indeed equal.

Huh??? What version of PG are you using?  On 7.4.9,


test=# select length('a'::char(8));
 length
--------
      8
(1 row)

test=# select length('a '::char(8));
 length
--------
      8
(1 row)

The truncation you describe would simply be wrong.