code review 5624051: database/sql: permit scanning into interface{}

database/sql: permit scanning into interface{}

See thread http://goo.gl/7zzzU for background.

[bradfitz, 2012-02-04 19:15:55]

Hello golang-dev@googlegroups.com (cc: golang-dev@googlegroups.com),

I'd like you to review this change to
https://go.googlecode.com/hg/

[rsc, 2012-02-04 19:23:03]

Seems reasonable, but I am not sure about coercing []byte to string.

Also, needs documentation.

[bradfitz, 2012-02-04 19:25:51]

On Sat, Feb 4, 2012 at 11:23 AM, Russ Cox <rsc@golang.org> wrote:

> Seems reasonable, but I am not sure about coercing []byte to string.
>

I figure that this is a sane default, just like we default to copying when
scanning into *[]byte.

In the future, we there becomes a need for people to have the
shared/short-lived []byte buffer, we could define something like:

type RawInterface interface{}

... like we do for RawBytes.  But I don't see the need for that yet.



> Also, needs documentation.
>

Will do.

[rsc, 2012-02-04 19:31:13]

I agree that a copy should be made, but given that we know nothing
about what the data is, copying into a new []byte seems more useful
than copying into a string.  I tend to think of strings as actual text,
while an arbitrary blob from a database could be, well, arbitrary data.

Russ

[bradfitz, 2012-02-04 19:32:02]

On Sat, Feb 4, 2012 at 11:31 AM, Russ Cox <rsc@golang.org> wrote:

> I agree that a copy should be made, but given that we know nothing
> about what the data is, copying into a new []byte seems more useful
> than copying into a string.  I tend to think of strings as actual text,
> while an arbitrary blob from a database could be, well, arbitrary data.
>

oh!  indeed.  I'm not sure why I copied into a string and not a []byte.

[bradfitz, 2012-02-04 19:52:33]

Hello golang-dev@googlegroups.com, rsc@golang.org (cc:
golang-dev@googlegroups.com),

Please take another look.

[rsc, 2012-02-06 17:43:02]

LGTM

[bradfitz, 2012-02-06 18:06:27]

*** Submitted as http://code.google.com/p/go/source/detail?r=c4ce7d36d09e ***

database/sql: permit scanning into interface{}

See thread http://goo.gl/7zzzU for background.

R=rsc
CC=golang-dev
http://codereview.appspot.com/5624051