Re: What does this error message mean?

On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 6:20 PM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:

> Ken Tanzer <ken(dot)tanzer(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> > Hi. I got an error message reported to me that I've never seen before,
> and
> > I'm not quite sure what it means or what would cause it.
>
> > ERROR: type of parameter 70 (text) does not match that when preparing
> the
> > plan (unknown) CONTEXT: PL/pgSQL function
> > generate_payments(date,text,integer,integer) line 195 at assignment
>
> I think this must mean that you changed the schema of table tbl_payment
> during this session, and then re-ran the function. plpgsql isn't as good
> as it could be about dealing with intra-session changes of composite
> types. The reference to "parameter 70" seems a bit odd though, it doesn't
> seem like you have anywhere near 70 variables in that function ...

> (thinks about it for a bit) Actually it seems more likely that a change
> in the rowtype of "payment" caused this, ie some change in the output
> column set of that "final_query" query. Difficult to guess more than
> that without more context.
>
> regards, tom lane
>

Thanks Tom. If you really mean it that the schema must have changed during
the session, that seems impossible (er, highly unlikely). The error was
generated through a web app that doesn't know how to do any schema changing.

If there's a broader window, though, schema changes do seem plausible. The
type of that comment field hasn't changed, but on Friday I did some
dropping and recreating of both the generate_payments function and the
views it draws upon. If the function was created before the view existed,
would that account for this error? (Leaving aside parameter 70, of
course). It is possible that this row was the first one generated by the
function since the schema drops/creates on Friday. (It actually looks like
it was 9 minutes after another row, but that's based on comparing server
time to a screenshot of a client's desktop with their clock showing, so I
wouldn't put too much faith in that.)

And if this error was from the Friday schema changes, would it have
auto-corrected itself so it only happened the one time?

Cheers,
Ken

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