dc9cc887b7
The point of a PlaceHolderVar is to allow a non-strict expression to be evaluated below an outer join, after which its value bubbles up like a Var and can be forced to NULL when the outer join's semantics require that. However, there was a serious design oversight in that, namely that we didn't ensure that there was actually a correct place in the plan tree to evaluate the placeholder :-(. It may be necessary to delay evaluation of an outer join to ensure that a placeholder that should be evaluated below the join can be evaluated there. Per recent bug report from Kirill Simonov. Back-patch to 8.4 where the PlaceHolderVar mechanism was introduced.
PostgreSQL Database Management System ===================================== This directory contains the source code distribution of the PostgreSQL database management system. PostgreSQL is an advanced object-relational database management system that supports an extended subset of the SQL standard, including transactions, foreign keys, subqueries, triggers, user-defined types and functions. This distribution also contains C language bindings. PostgreSQL has many language interfaces, many of which are listed here: http://www.postgresql.org/download See the file INSTALL for instructions on how to build and install PostgreSQL. That file also lists supported operating systems and hardware platforms and contains information regarding any other software packages that are required to build or run the PostgreSQL system. Changes between all PostgreSQL releases are recorded in the file HISTORY. Copyright and license information can be found in the file COPYRIGHT. A comprehensive documentation set is included in this distribution; it can be read as described in the installation instructions. The latest version of this software may be obtained at http://www.postgresql.org/download/. For more information look at our web site located at http://www.postgresql.org/.