Re: PG_GETARG_GISTENTRY?

Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> On Wed, Mar 29, 2017 at 11:54 PM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
>> Andres Freund <andres(at)anarazel(dot)de> writes:
>>> we have a good number of '(GISTENTRY *) PG_GETARG_POINTER(n)' in our
>>> code - looks a bit better & shorter to have PG_GETARG_GISTENTRY(n).

>> Should be PG_GETARG_GISTENTRY_P to match existing conventions,
>> otherwise +1

> I have never quite understood why some of those macros have _P or _PP
> on the end and others don't.

_P means "pointer to". _PP was introduced later to mean "pointer to
packed (ie, possibly short-header) datum". Macros that mean to fetch
pointers to pass-by-ref data, but aren't using either of those naming
conventions, are violating project conventions, not least because you
don't know what they're supposed to do with short-header varlena input.
If I had a bit more spare time I'd run around and change any such macros.

In short, if you are supposed to write

FOO *val = PG_GETARG_FOO(n);

then the macro designer blew it, because the name implies that it
returns FOO, not pointer to FOO. This should be

FOO *val = PG_GETARG_FOO_P(n);

regards, tom lane