Re: [PATCH] Bug in XPATH() if expression returns a scalar value

On tis, 2011-05-31 at 16:19 +0200, Florian Pflug wrote:
> If people deem this to be a problem, we could instead add a separate
> function XPATH_VALUE() that returns VARCHAR, and make people use that
> for scalar-value-returning expressions.

Why not replicate what contrib/xml2 provides, namely

xpath_string()
xpath_number()
xpath_bool()

That way, types are preserved.

> However, to avoid confusion,
> XPATH() should then be taught to raise an error if used for
> scalar-value
> returning expressions, instead of silently returning an empty array as
> it does now.

Sounds reasonable.