On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 1:21 PM, Andrew Dunstan <and...@dunslane.net> wrote: > Assuming we had the cast, What would "intval like '1%'" mean? You're going > to match 1, 10..19, 100..199, 1000..1999 ... > > Now maybe there's a good use for such a test, but I'm have a VERY hard time > imagining what it might be.
Well, I can readily see someone encoding parts of their application into this sort of encoding, so that, for instance, all customer numbers beginning with "1" are deemed to be "internal accounts." It's a pretty terrible approach to encoding data for an application; it leads to stuff like the "oops, once they have generated 30,000 invoices, the system reaches doomsday and can't work anymore." http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Ive-Got-Your-Number.aspx But nothing prevents users from designing their applications to encode information in their ID prefixes. And I have *zero* confidence that for PostgreSQL to rule out "LIKE '1%'" is preventing those designs from getting built... When confronted by a difficult problem, solve it by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger handle this?" -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
