Re: Fw:Re: Fw: ltree_compare in contrib/ltree/ltree_op.c overflows int32 on deep ltree comparisons, returning the wrong sign

Hi,

On Mon, 15 Jun 2026 at 20:38, Heikki Linnakangas <hlinnaka(at)iki(dot)fi> wrote:

> On 13/06/2026 09:12, Ayush Tiwari wrote:
> > This looks like a classic case of integer overflow that's
> > happening in ltree_compare function in ltree_op.c.
> >
> > return (al->len - bl->len) * 10 * (an + 1);
> > return res * 10 * (an + 1);
> > return (a->numlevel - b->numlevel) * 10 * (an + 1);
> >
> > I think the calculation should be done as int64, something of this sort:
>
> Yeah, that works. However, I note that the multiplication is only really
> needed by the ltree_penalty() caller. All the other callers just check
> if the return value is less than, equal, or greater than zero. It feels
> a little silly to do all that work of multiplication and clamping for
> those callers. And for ltree_penalty(), the caller actually converts the
> return value to a float, so clamping it to int32 range feels a little
> silly for that too. So I propose the attached, which splits the
> ltree_compare() function into two variants: one for ltree_penalty() that
> returns a float, and one for others that don't care about the
> "magnitude". It duplicates a little code, but I think it's easier to
> reason about. What do you think?
>

I had thought initially of using the method you have added,
(not with float return-type though, I thought of planning to create
a duplicate function with int64 type just for ltree_penalty(), but float
type
is better) noting the same thing that rest callers just care about
comparison with 0.

But thought backpatching it would be harder, hence I used the int64
method. However, your patch looks much better than the ugly
behaviour and I agree it did not make sense to do those
multiplications at all other comparison functions.

Regards,
Ayush