Re: bit strings - anyone working on them?

Philip Warner <pjw@rhyme.com.au> writes:
>      select B'10' | B'1';
>     is currently illegal.

> ISTM we should return B'11' for this. ie. build the smallest varbit that 
> contains the result, and return it.

Why would that be the correct answer and not B'10' --- ie, which end of
the shorter string should get padded?  If anything I'd expect to see
padding added on the right.

> Doesn't seem too unreasonable to support varbit<->numeric conversions.

Aren't those there already for conversions to/from int4 and int8?  What
else would you want?
        regards, tom lane