Bug and Patch for dump/restore of varchars - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

OK, i finally got some time.  I know I should have gotten
this out long ago

I had three actual bugs I had to fix with 6.3.1 for our
production application.

1) can't enter float .001  (FIXED)
2) Can't dump/restore varchar fields (See attached bug report/patch)
3) Problems with tcl interface, storing/retrieving lists  (under discussion)

Is this the right fix?  How do I get the patch applied?
I haven't supplied patches before.  The patch is against
the latest snapshot.

-- cary

Bug report, can't restore varchar fields
---------------------------------------

Version:  postgresql snapshot dated oct 9 (well, that's when I downloaded it).

Problem:  Pg dump dumps varchar fields as varchar(-5).

cary=> create table fred (id int, name varchar, salary float);
CREATE
cary=> \q
[cary@jason new]$ pg_dump cary -t fred > /tmp/fred.sql
[cary@jason new]$ cat /tmp/fred.sql
CREATE TABLE "fred" ("id" "int4", "name" varchar(-5), "salary" "float8");
COPY "fred" FROM stdin;
\.
[cary@jason new]$ psql < /tmp/fred.sql
CREATE TABLE "fred" ("id" "int4", "name" varchar(-5), "salary" "float8");
ERROR:  parser: parse error at or near "-"
COPY "fred" FROM stdin;
EOF

Solution:  fix pg_dump
---------------------------------------- start patch ----------------------
[cary@jason pg_dump]$ rcsdiff -C 5 pg_dump.c
===================================================================
RCS file: RCS/pg_dump.c,v
retrieving revision 1.1
diff -C 5 -r1.1 pg_dump.c
*** pg_dump.c    1998/10/10 11:24:22    1.1
--- pg_dump.c    1998/10/10 11:34:47
***************
*** 2647,2660 ****
                          sprintf(q, "%s%s%s %s",
                                  q,
                                  (actual_atts > 0) ? ", " : "",
                                  fmtId(tblinfo[i].attnames[j]),
                                  tblinfo[i].typnames[j]);
!
!                         sprintf(q, "%s(%d)",
                                  q,
                                  tblinfo[i].atttypmod[j] - VARHDRSZ);
                          actual_atts++;
                      }
                      else
                      {
                          strcpy(id1, fmtId(tblinfo[i].attnames[j]));
--- 2647,2664 ----
                          sprintf(q, "%s%s%s %s",
                                  q,
                                  (actual_atts > 0) ? ", " : "",
                                  fmtId(tblinfo[i].attnames[j]),
                                  tblinfo[i].typnames[j]);
!                         if(tblinfo[i].atttypmod[j] != -1) {
!                                 sprintf(q, "%s(%d)",
                                  q,
                                  tblinfo[i].atttypmod[j] - VARHDRSZ);
+                         }
+                         else {
+                                 sprintf(q, "%s", q);
+                         }
                          actual_atts++;
                      }
                      else
                      {
                          strcpy(id1, fmtId(tblinfo[i].attnames[j]));
---------------------- end of patch ------------------------------------------