Re: Runtime accepting build discrepancies

Thomas Hallgren <thhal@mailblocks.com> writes:
> A user download a pre-built PostgreSQL 7.4.7 from somewhere and a 
> pre-built pljava distro from gborg. He gets everything running but 
> suddenly encounteres problems with the timetz type. PL/Java apparently 
> return the time as zero. The problem is caused by the postgresql binary 
> being built using --enable-integer-datetimes whereas the PL/Java binary 
> is not.

Why is PL/Java dependent on the internal representation of any
particular datatype?  Seems like this is a symptom of bad PL design
more than anything else.

> The dynamic loader doesn't detect this and I bet there's a ton of 
> combinations that will link just fine but perhaps crash (badly) in 
> runtime. I would like to detect discrepancies like this during runtime 
> somehow. I feel that it's either that or stop providing pre-built 
> binaries altogether. I realize that I can't be the only one with this 
> problem. How is this normally handled?

If you want you can look into pg_control to see how the database is
set up.
        regards, tom lane