fix: concat_ws should skip null values and honour a null separator - #479
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fix: concat_ws should skip null values and honour a null separator#479spokodev wants to merge 1 commit into
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concat_ws joined null values as empty fields (keeping the separator),
coerced a null separator to the text "null", and never returned null.
Postgres skips null value arguments, returns null when the separator is
null, and returns an empty string when every value is null.
select concat_ws(',', 'a', null, 'b'); -- was 'a,,b', postgres 'a,b'
select concat_ws(null, 'a', 'b'); -- was 'anullb', postgres null
select concat_ws(',', null, null); -- was ',', postgres ''
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Problem
concat_wsmishandles nulls three ways:Postgres skips null value arguments, returns null when the separator is null, and returns an empty string when every value argument is null:
Ref: Postgres string functions (concat_ws)
Cause
The implementation was
(separator, ...x) => x?.join(separator), which turns each null value into an empty field (the separator is still emitted), coerces a null separator to the string"null", and can never return null.Fix
Return null when the separator is null, and skip null values before joining (an all-null value list yields an empty string). Unit tests added in
function-calls.spec.ts.