Re: string_to_array with an empty input string

"David E. Wheeler" <david(at)kineticode(dot)com> writes:
> On Aug 11, 2010, at 7:41 AM, Tom Lane wrote:
>> So maybe we need to revisit the issue. Pavel was claiming that
>> switching to a zero-element array result was a no-brainer, but evidently
>> it isn't so. Is anybody still excited about the alternatives?

> % perl -E 'say q{"}, join(",", ""), q{"}'
> ""
> % ruby -e 'puts %q{"} + [""].join(",") + %q{"}'
> ""
> % python -c 'print "\"" + ",".join([""]) + "\""'
> ""

> I believe those are all "", rather than '"' + undef + '"'.

If you believe my previous opinion that the design center for these
functions is arrays of numbers, then a zero-entry text[] array is what
you want, because you can successfully cast it to a zero-entry array of
integers or floats or whatever. Returning a single empty string will
make those cases fail. So at the moment I'm on the side of the fence
that says zero-entry array is the best answer.

regards, tom lane