Update docs & tests to reflect that unassigned OLD/NEW are now NULL.
authorTom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Wed, 9 Jan 2019 16:35:14 +0000 (11:35 -0500)
committerTom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Wed, 9 Jan 2019 16:35:14 +0000 (11:35 -0500)
commit59029b6fb71e187c150d12f4c37bb2bf982d3125
tree5ef9f96b6ac3219e28e889f30a0171a111a9e078
parenta2b22d8e804511ca7f0f712e8365a6a013b0254e
Update docs & tests to reflect that unassigned OLD/NEW are now NULL.

For a long time, plpgsql has allowed trigger functions to parse
references to OLD and NEW even if the current trigger event type didn't
assign a value to one or the other variable; but actually executing such
a reference would fail.  The v11 changes to use "expanded records" for
DTYPE_REC variables changed the behavior so that the unassigned variable
now reads as a null composite value.  While this behavioral change was
more or less unintentional, it seems that leaving it like this is better
than adding code and complexity to be bug-compatible with the old way.
The change doesn't break any code that worked before, and it eliminates
a gotcha that often required extra code to work around.

Hence, update the docs to say that these variables are "null" not
"unassigned" when not relevant to the event type.  And add a regression
test covering the behavior, so that we'll notice if we ever break it
again.

Per report from Kristjan Tammekivi.

Discussion: http://postgr.es/m/CAABK7uL-uC9ZxKBXzo_68pKt7cECfNRv+c35CXZpjq6jCAzYYA@mail.gmail.com
doc/src/sgml/plpgsql.sgml
doc/src/sgml/release-11.sgml
src/pl/plpgsql/src/Makefile
src/pl/plpgsql/src/expected/plpgsql_trigger.out [new file with mode: 0644]
src/pl/plpgsql/src/pl_exec.c
src/pl/plpgsql/src/sql/plpgsql_trigger.sql [new file with mode: 0644]