On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, Christoph Haller wrote: > Just a short question (PostgreSQL 7.3.4 on hppa-hp-hpux10.20, compiled by GCC 2.8.1) > > SELECT ('' > 'GDMF') ; SELECT ('GDMF' > ''); > ?column? > ---------- > f > (1 row) > > ?column? > ---------- > t > (1 row) > > Are these results standard compliant?
I think so in general. If the two lengths are not equal, then "effectively" the shorter string is replaced by an extended version. If it's NO PAD (varchar/text for us) the character used is a character that sorts less than any string. Otherwise (char) it's a space. Then you use the collating sequence to determine the value of >. Most will put space before any of GDMF, so the above seems reasonable. ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match