Re: BUG #3506: to_number silently ignore characters

From: Laurent Martelli <laurent(dot)martelli(at)seditel(dot)fr>
To: Heikki Linnakangas <heikki(at)enterprisedb(dot)com>
Cc: Laurent Martelli <lmartelli(at)seditel(dot)fr>, pgsql-bugs(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: BUG #3506: to_number silently ignore characters
Date: 2007-08-03 08:04:51
Message-ID: 46B2E1A3.2080104@seditel.fr
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Heikki Linnakangas a écrit :
> Laurent Martelli wrote:
>> to_number('123.0','999999') returns 1230, at least on version 7.4 and 8.1. I
>> think it should return 123 or raise an error.
>
> to_number will silently ignore any character that doesn't match the
> pattern. That can be confusing, and not generally a very bright idea in
> applications, but we can't really change the behavior because that could
> break existing applications.

OK. I'm tempted to say that since this is not specified in the
documentation, applications should not rely on this behaviour. But I
understand you will not to break existing applications, so perhaps you
could add a function that would behave in a more expected manner, or at
least document precisely the current behaviour in the documentation.

Best regards,
Laurent

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