Re: Handling of \ in array data display

From: Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>
To: josh(at)agliodbs(dot)com
Cc: Alvaro Herrera <alvherre(at)commandprompt(dot)com>, pgsql-bugs(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: Handling of \ in array data display
Date: 2006-08-19 00:08:42
Message-ID: 26341.1155946122@sss.pgh.pa.us
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Josh Berkus <josh(at)agliodbs(dot)com> writes:
>> tarr[1] does not have a \, because it was eaten by the parser (so \y is
>> the same as a plain y). tarr[2] does have a single backslash, which for
>> output purposes is shown escaped with another backslash when part of an
>> array, but unescaped when not. I'm not sure if this qualifies as a bug
>> or not.

> I think it does.

This is documented behavior for arrays:
http://developer.postgresql.org/docs/postgres/arrays.html#AEN5764
and has been that way for a very long time. If we change it we will
break every array-using application on the planet, because it will
in fact be impossible to parse an array value unambiguously.

I don't think "one user was confused" justifies fooling with this.

regards, tom lane

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