On Wed, Mar 4, 2020 at 4:21 PM stan <st...@panix.com> wrote: > Probably a bit off topic, but I suspect someone on this list knows how to > do > this. > > I am in the process of writing a plperl function. In this function I need > to compare the data in the NEW versus OLD structures. I am writing this as > a > generic subroutine, so I am looping through and comparing the 2 to see what > is different. Problem is, that I need to know whether to us n != or a ne > comparison. > > how can I determine what the data type of the value element is? >
Not up to speed on Perl but you basically want everything to be done using string equality - can't you just use "ne" everywhere and not worry about comparing numbers using string comparison logic? Might want to disabled warnings... That would have to be faster than executing a type_of function on every single column. Then measure performance and decide whether a generic routine is performant enough. If not you might try creating custom function dynamically using the catalogs as input. David J.
