On Wed, 2007-10-17 at 14:37 -0600, Pete Deffendol wrote: > Hi, > > After suddenly receiving errors in my Mapserver install, I tracked the > problem down to a missing cast from boolean to text type. In earlier > releases of PostGIS (1.2.x), the lwpostgis.sql file did the following: > > CREATE CAST (bool AS text) WITH FUNCTION ST_text(bool) AS IMPLICIT; > > In version 1.3.1, this line is commented out of lwpostgis.sql. I can't > find any reference to the change in the Changelog. Was it disabled for > any particular reason? > > Pete
Hi Pete, Yes. Since boolean and text are PostgreSQL types (rather than PostGIS types) then PostGIS really shouldn't be changing the default behaviour of non-spatial data types. In general, implicit casts to text are not good since they can cause problems when working with incorrect inputs, and for this reason most of them have been removed from PostgreSQL 8.3. The recommended advice would be to re-write your queries so that they don't reply on the implicit cast (use the CAST() function if required), although if you are happy with the risks involved then there is nothing to stop you adding the implicit cast back in. ATB, Mark. -- ILande - Open Source Consultancy http://www.ilande.co.uk _______________________________________________ postgis-users mailing list [email protected] http://postgis.refractions.net/mailman/listinfo/postgis-users
