Joshua Tolley <eggyk...@gmail.com> writes:
> On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 06:46:25PM -0700, David E. Wheeler 
>> Yes, but given that the standard says that `ROW(1, NULL)` is NULL, then I 
>> would expect it to be NOT DISTINCT from `ROW(2, NULL)`.

> Wait, didn't we decide upthread that the standard said ROW(1, NULL) isn't
> NULL?

David misspoke in the quoted statement, as I believe he figured out soon
thereafter.  For that row value, neither IS NULL nor IS NOT NULL will
return true.  The spec defines them in such a way that they are not inverses
for row values.

SQL2008 points out:

            NOTE 219 - For all R, "R IS NOT NULL" has the same result as
            "NOT R IS NULL" if and only if R is of degree 1. Table 14,
            "<null predicate> semantics", specifies this behavior.

That table looks like this:

                           R IS    R IS NOT      NOT R IS      NOT R IS NOT
         _Expression_______NULL____NULL__________NULL__________NULL_________

        | degree 1: null | true_ | false_      | false_     |  true_       |
        |                |       |             |            |              |
        | degree 1: not  | false_| true_       | true_      |  false_      |
          null

        | degree > 1:    | true_ | false_      | false_     |  true_       |
        | all null       |       |             |            |              |
        |                |       |             |            |              |
        | degree > 1:    | false_| false_      | true_      |  true_       |
        | some null      |       |             |            |              |
        |                |       |             |            |              |
        | degree > 1:    | false_| true_       | true_      |  false_      |
        |_none_null______|_______|_____________|____________|______________|


                        regards, tom lane

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