Weird behaviour with binary copy, arrays and column count

Hi all, apologies if this is the wrong list to use, but I figured this is a
low-level enough problem that it might be the best to gain some
understanding.

In PGDB 13.4 I have a simple (obscured) table;

CREATE SEQUENCE tbl_id_seq START 1;
CREATE TABLE tbl (
a BIGINT UNIQUE NOT NULL DEFAULT nextval('tbl_id_seq'),
b BIGINT NOT NULL,
c TIMESTAMP WITHOUT TIME ZONE NOT NULL,
d INT NOT NULL,
e INT NULL DEFAULT 0,
f INT NULL DEFAULT 1,
g INT NULL DEFAULT 0,
h BIGINT ARRAY,
PRIMARY KEY (a)
);

Prior to introducing the ARRAY as field h, everything was working fine
using a binary mode COPY via libpq;
COPY tbl (b,c,d,e,f,g,h) FROM STDIN WITH (FORMAT binary, FREEZE ON)
PQputCopyData()
PQputCopyEnd()
etc.

Now this is where the problem becomes peculiar. I read all the Interwebs
has to offer on the efforts required to encode an array
in binary mode and I've achieved that just fine... but it only works *if* I
remove column g from the COPY statement and data (it can remain in table
definition and be filled in with a default). It's most odd. I've
selectively gone through the table adding/removing fields until I get to
this. It doesn't appear to be the array copy itself - it succeeds with 6
columns (b .. f plus h) but fails with the full complement of 7 (noting
that 'a' is a generative sequence). The error in the PG logs is this;

ERROR: syntax error at end of input at character 255

It does seem to smell of an alignment, padding, buffer overrun, parsing
kind of error. I tried reintroducing column g as a larger integer or
smaller field and the problem persists (and curiously the input character
error remains at 255).

Also, if I remove the array from the COPY or replace it with a simple
(series of) int, then the problem also goes away. The size of the array
appears to have no relevance - whether its just a single item or 10, for
example, the same problem remains and the same parse error at character
255. Finally, the definition order of the columns/fields also makes no
difference - I can sandwich the array in the middle of the table and the
COPY listing and the upload still succeeds so long as I keep the column
count down at 6, essentially omitting 'g' again in this case.

I've read the array_send/recv functions in arrayfuncs.c and pretty sure I
got that right (otherwise the array copy wouldn't work at all, right!?) ...
its this odd combination of array+field lengths I can't figure!? I couldn't
find the protocol receive code where array_recv is called - that might
provide a clue.

Anyway, I appreciate I've sent this off without code or an MRE - I'll work
on getting something isolated. Until then I wanted to get the ball rolling,
in case anyone has any clues or can suggest what I'm either doing wrong or
where the problem might be in PG!? In the meantime, to confirm the PG array
format in binary its (inc overall field size for wire transfer);

htobe32(total_array_bytes_inc_header);
/* begin header */
htobe32(1); // single dimension
htobe32(0); // flags
htobe32(20); // array of bigint (it's OID)
htobe32(2); // 2 items, as an example
htobe32(1); // offset to first dimension
/* end header */
for (int i = 0 ; i < 2 ; ++i) {
htobe32(sizeof(int8));
htobe64(some_int8_val + i);
}

Cheers,

Jim

--
Jim Vanns
Principal Production Engineer
Industrial Light & Magic, London