On ons, 2011-11-30 at 17:56 -0500, Robert Haas wrote: > On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 3:58 PM, Stephen Frost <sfr...@snowman.net> wrote: > > Erm, isn't there a contrib type that already does all that for you..? > > ip4r or whatever? Just saying, if you're looking for that capability.. > > Oh, huh, good to know. Still, I'm not sure why you need to load a > separate type to get this... there's no reason why the built-in CIDR > type couldn't support it.
A couple of reasons: - ip4 is fixed-length, so it's much faster. (Obviously, this is living on borrowed time. Who knows.) - Conversely, it might be considered a feature that ip4 only stores IPv4 addresses. - ip4 really only stores a single address, not a netmask, not sometimes a netmask, or sometimes a range, or sometimes a network and an address, or whatever. That really seems like the most common use case, and no matter what you do with the other types, some stupid netmask will appear in your output when you least expect it. - Integrates with ip4r, which has GiST support. - Some old-school internet gurus worked out why inet and cidr have to behave the way they do, which no one else understands, and no one dares to discuss, whereas ip4/ip4r are simple and appear to be built for practical use. Really, it's all about worse is better. -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers