variant ======= variant is a Postgres datatype that can hold data from any other type, as well as remembering what the original type was. For example: SELECT 'some text'::text::variant.variant; variant -------------------- (text,"some text") (1 row) SELECT 42::int::variant.variant; variant -------------- (integer,42) (1 row) To build it, just do this: make install and then in your database: CREATE EXTENSION variant; See "Building" below for more details or if you run into a problem. Current Status ============== You can see the curren status of this extension at http://pgxn-tester.org/distributions/variant Building ======== To build variant, do this: make make install If you encounter an error such as: "Makefile", line 8: Need an operator You need to use GNU make, which may well be installed on your system as `gmake`: gmake gmake install If you encounter an error such as: make: pg_config: Command not found Be sure that you have `pg_config` installed and in your path. If you used a package management system such as RPM to install PostgreSQL, be sure that the `-devel` package is also installed. If necessary tell the build process where to find it: env PG_CONFIG=/path/to/pg_config make && make install And finally, if all that fails (and if you're on PostgreSQL 8.1 or lower, it likely will), copy the entire distribution directory to the `contrib/` subdirectory of the PostgreSQL source tree and try it there without `pg_config`: env NO_PGXS=1 make && make installcheck && make install If you encounter an error such as: ERROR: must be owner of database regression You need to run the test suite using a super user, such as the default "postgres" super user: make installcheck PGUSER=postgres Once variant is installed, you can add it to a database. If you're running PostgreSQL 9.1.0 or greater, it's a simple as connecting to a database as a super user and running: CREATE EXTENSION variant; If you've upgraded your cluster to PostgreSQL 9.1 and already had variant installed, you can upgrade it to a properly packaged extension with: CREATE EXTENSION variant FROM unpackaged; For versions of PostgreSQL less than 9.1.0, you'll need to run the installation script: psql -d mydb -f /path/to/pgsql/share/contrib/variant.sql If you want to install variant and all of its supporting objects into a specific schema, use the `PGOPTIONS` environment variable to specify the schema, like so: PGOPTIONS=--search_path=extensions psql -d mydb -f variant.sql Dependencies ------------ The `variant` data type has no dependencies other than PostgreSQL. Copyright and License --------------------- Copyright (c) 2014 Jim Nasby, Blue Treble Consulting http://BlueTreble.com