postgresql/doc
Tom Lane 759b03b24c Simplify creation of built-in functions with default arguments.
Up to now, to create such a function, one had to make a pg_proc.dat
entry and then overwrite it with a CREATE OR REPLACE command in
system_functions.sql.  That's error-prone (cf. bug #19409) and
results in leaving dead rows in the initial contents of pg_proc.

Manual maintenance of pg_node_tree strings seems entirely impractical,
and parsing expressions during bootstrap would be extremely difficult
as well.  But Andres Freund observed that all the current use-cases
are simple constants, and building a Const node is well within the
capabilities of bootstrap mode.  So this patch invents a special case:
if bootstrap mode is asked to ingest a non-null value for
pg_proc.proargdefaults (which would otherwise fail in
pg_node_tree_in), it parses the value as an array literal and then
feeds the element strings to the input functions for the corresponding
parameter types.  Then we can build a suitable pg_node_tree string
with just a few more lines of code.

This allows removing all the system_functions.sql entries that are
just there to set up default arguments, replacing them with
proargdefaults fields in pg_proc.dat entries.  The old technique
remains available in case someone needs a non-constant default.

The initial contents of pg_proc are demonstrably the same after
this patch, except that (1) json_strip_nulls and jsonb_strip_nulls
now have the correct provolatile setting, as per bug #19409;
(2) pg_terminate_backend, make_interval, and drandom_normal
now have defaults that don't include a type coercion, which is
how they should have been all along.

In passing, remove some unused entries from bootstrap.c's TypInfo[]
array.  I had to add some new ones because we'll now need an entry for
each default-possessing system function parameter, but we shouldn't
carry more than we need there; it's just a maintenance gotcha.

Bug: #19409
Reported-by: Lucio Chiessi <lucio.chiessi@trustly.com>
Author: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Author: Andrew Dunstan <andrew@dunslane.net>
Reviewed-by: Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/183292bb-4891-4c96-a3ca-e78b5e0e1358@dunslane.net
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/19409-e16cd2605e59a4af@postgresql.org
2026-02-18 14:14:44 -05:00
..
src Simplify creation of built-in functions with default arguments. 2026-02-18 14:14:44 -05:00
KNOWN_BUGS Remove extra newlines at end and beginning of files, add missing newlines 2010-08-19 05:57:36 +00:00
Makefile Remove distprep 2023-11-06 15:18:04 +01:00
MISSING_FEATURES Remove extra newlines at end and beginning of files, add missing newlines 2010-08-19 05:57:36 +00:00
TODO Change documentation references to PG website to use https: not http: 2017-05-20 21:50:47 -04:00