Proposal - libpq Type System beta-0.8a (was PGparam)

We previously tried to send this proposal/patch, but it never showed up.
We tried twice in a 16 hour period. It might be something with the
attachment, who knows. This time, we are providing a URL instead of
attaching the patch. Please disregard previous emails if they come back
from never-never-land.

http://www.esilo.com/projects/postgresql/libpq/typesys-beta-0.8a.tar.gz

What was previously called PGparam is now called libpq Type System.
PGparam is just one structure within the Type System.

This is an updated proposal/patch for a Type System in libpq. Basically,
it allows applications to send binary formatted paramters "put" and
receive text or binary formatted results "get" through a printf-style
interface. It also adds the ability to register user-defined types,
sub-classes of existing types as well as composites. There is full
support for arrays, composites, composite arrays and nested composites.

There are four documents included within the tar:

type-system-api.txt - Documents the API functions

type-specifiers.txt - This explains the type specifier syntax
(printf-style). It also documents how to construct parameters and get
result values for every supported type.

composites-arrays.txt - Documents the use of arrays, composites and
arrays of composites. This proposed API has full support for nested
arrays or composites.

type-handlers.txt - Explains how to register and implement a libpq type
handler. Types can be sub-classed.

The patch is named typesys.patch. There is a regression test named
regression-test.c and a makefile for it named makefile.typesys.

Andrew & Merlin
eSilo