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authorTom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>2020-03-17 15:05:17 -0400
committerTom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>2020-03-17 15:05:17 -0400
commit9a9b87191a32fb97dbd9cad6d9a8a43a9fc31c16 (patch)
tree3af6c08aba94e8a663cf2a4c354a40f520ae7443
parentcd6a0518794d939ed6a716c1a13ead2900b11d50 (diff)
Doc: clarify behavior of "anyrange" pseudo-type.
I noticed that we completely failed to document the restriction that an "anyrange" result type has to be inferred from an "anyrange" input. The docs also were less clear than they could be about the relationship between "anyrange" and "anyarray". It's been like this all along, so back-patch.
-rw-r--r--doc/src/sgml/extend.sgml21
1 files changed, 17 insertions, 4 deletions
diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/extend.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/extend.sgml
index add3d6b1065..7597ac49b68 100644
--- a/doc/src/sgml/extend.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/extend.sgml
@@ -225,10 +225,12 @@
<type>anyarray</type> positions must be an array whose elements are
the same type appearing in the <type>anyelement</type> positions.
Similarly, if there are positions declared <type>anyrange</type>
- and others declared <type>anyelement</type>, the actual range type in
- the <type>anyrange</type> positions must be a range whose subtype is
- the same type appearing in the <type>anyelement</type> positions.
- <type>anynonarray</> is treated exactly the same as <type>anyelement</>,
+ and others declared <type>anyelement</type> or <type>anyarray</type>,
+ the actual range type in the <type>anyrange</type> positions must be a
+ range whose subtype is the same type appearing in
+ the <type>anyelement</type> positions and the same as the element type
+ of the <type>anyarray</type> positions.
+ <type>anynonarray</type> is treated exactly the same as <type>anyelement</type>,
but adds the additional constraint that the actual type must not be
an array type.
<type>anyenum</> is treated exactly the same as <type>anyelement</>,
@@ -259,6 +261,17 @@
</para>
<para>
+ In most cases, the parser can infer the actual data type for a
+ polymorphic result type from arguments that are of a different
+ polymorphic type; for example <type>anyarray</type> can be deduced
+ from <type>anyelement</type> or vice versa. The exception is that a
+ polymorphic result of type <type>anyrange</type> requires an argument
+ of type <type>anyrange</type>; it cannot be deduced
+ from <type>anyarray</type> or <type>anyelement</type> arguments. This
+ is because there could be multiple range types with the same subtype.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
Note that <type>anynonarray</> and <type>anyenum</> do not represent
separate type variables; they are the same type as
<type>anyelement</type>, just with an additional constraint. For