If you want ORDER BY on the column to default to your custom ordering,
the only way is a distinct datatype that you can make your custom
opclass be the default for.
The domain idea might work, I'm not totally sure. Defining
functions/operators on a domain is a bit ticklish because anything but
an exact match will get smashed to the domain base type and thus not
match your function. I think though that in this case you might get
away with it because it would be an exact match --- it's worth a try
anyway.
I gave it a try but
a) my original problem appeared: I can not specify a limit for a domain type:
db=> create domain vchar as varchar;
CREATE DOMAIN
db=> create temp table a(a vchar(10));
ERROR: syntax error at or near "(" at character 28
LINE 1: create temp table a(a vchar(10));
b) the sort order is the same as for varchar with my custom opclass (creating
with default for type vchar).
So I will end up with my own type (for in/out functions simply calling that
ones from varchar)
and using "user defined typmod" if available in an upcoming release.
Would it be a nice feature for standard postgres to support such a type? ;-)
The compare function simply would be:
if(len_left < len_right) return -1;
else if(len_left > len_right) return 1;
else return strncmp(left, right, len_left);
Thank you for discussion,
Michael
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