Re: OCTET_LENGTH is wrong

From: Bruce Momjian <pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us>
To: Peter Eisentraut <peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net>
Cc: Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>, PostgreSQL Development <pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Re: OCTET_LENGTH is wrong
Date: 2001-11-18 19:17:07
Message-ID: 200111181917.fAIJH7Q02239@candle.pha.pa.us
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> I think "the value of S" implies "the user-accessible representation of
> the value of S", in the sense, "How much memory do I need to allocate to
> store this value".
>
> Furthermore, the size of the TOAST representation that is returned now is
> just one particular of several intermediate representations. For
> instance, it does not include the VARHDRSZ and it does not include the
> size of the tuple headers when it's stored externally. Thus, this size is
> heavily skewed toward low numbers and doesn't tell you much about either
> the disk end or the user's end.

Yes, good arguments. If we want to implement storage_length at some
later time, I think the compressed length may be appropriate, but for
general use, I think we need to return the uncompressed length,
especially considering that multibyte makes the ordinary 2length return
number of characters, so users need a way to get byte length.

Attached is a patch that makes text return the same value type as char()
and varchar() already do. As Tatsuo pointed out, they were
inconsistent. All the other octet_length() functions look fine so it
was only text that had this problem.

--
Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us | (610) 853-3000
+ If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue
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