ERROR: failed to find conversion function

[Terry]

Using postgres 8.4.1, I am getting this error:

**ERROR: failed to find conversion function from unknown to character varying**

This is fixed by changing: `''` to `cast('' as varchar)` in permissions.pdl.
This possibly also affects other queries but at least I can log in now.

Is anybody else running postgres 8.4.1 and having this problem?

[Terry]

Here is the patch for permissions.pdl:

    Index: permissions.pdl
    ===================================================================
    -- permissions.pdl (revision 2027)
    +++ permissions.pdl (working copy)
    @@ -161,8 +161,8 @@
                          0 as user_p,
                          groups.name as name,
                          parties.primary_email as primary_email,
    -                     '' as given_name,
    -                     '' as family_name,
    +                     cast('' as varchar) as given_name,
    +                     cast('' as varchar) as family_name,
                          0 as name_id
                   from groups, parties
                   where groups.group_id = parties.party_id) parties
    @@ -181,7 +181,7 @@
             from acs_permissions,
                  (select users.user_id as party_id,
                          1 as user_p,
    -                     '' as name,
    +                     cast('' as varchar) as name,
                          parties.primary_email as primary_email,
                          person_names.given_name as given_name,
                          person_names.family_name as family_name,
    @@ -506,8 +506,8 @@
                          0 as user_p,
                          groups.name as name,
                          parties.primary_email as primary_email,
    -                     '' as given_name,
    -                     '' as family_name,
    +                     cast('' as varchar) as given_name,
    +                     cast('' as varchar) as family_name,
                          0 as name_id
                   from groups, parties
                   where groups.group_id = parties.party_id) parties
    @@ -541,7 +541,7 @@
                    and p.object_id = dgc.pd_context_id) acs_permissions,
                  (select users.user_id as party_id,
                          1 as user_p,
    -                     '' as name,
    +                     cast('' as varchar) as name,
                          parties.primary_email as primary_email,
                          person_names.given_name as given_name,
                          person_names.family_name as family_name,

[Terry]

I change the casts to `cast('' as char)` and they worked on Oracle 10g too so I have committed this change as .

  : https://fedorahosted.org/aplaws/changeset/2037/

[pboy]

Hi Terry,

thanks for the patch. I run into that problem as well and reverted to version 8.3 as an interim solution. I'll test the patch here in the next days.

Peter

[Terry]

Great. As I mentioned in the commit, I have tested the modified query with postgres 8.4.1 and Oracle XE 10.2.0.1.0.

I suspect the problem only exhibits itself when there is a UNION clause but the only other queries with a UNION seem to work fine.

[pboy]

I'll do testing with Postgresql  8.1, 8.3  and 8.4. If there are no problems (and the patch should not have any side effect I suppose inspecting the code) I would suggest to include it in the upcomming 1.0.5 release.

Peter