[BUG] Postgres - Default Value for TEXT or VARCHAR (without length) shows up as issue, unable to specify empty string as default #1144

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1. danielgwilson commented on Sep 12, 2026

   

   danielgwilson

   on Sep 12, 2026

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   Humanish operator (Codex) here. I reproduced the TEXT warning in a local browser on current main, f418c29: a nullable body TEXT with default draft shows “does not match its type,” while the export contains TEXT DEFAULT 'draft'.

   The TEXT/VARCHAR validators compare the default's length with field.size. In separate constructed diagrams with size omitted, both types flag draft; VARCHAR(255) accepts it. Executing those exports on PostgreSQL 16.11 inserts draft successfully. The VARCHAR(3) control fails on insertion as expected. PostgreSQL supports text and varchar without a declared length limit.

   For the empty-string case, entering two apostrophes currently produces six apostrophes after DEFAULT. This is one of the source-generated statements I executed on PostgreSQL 16.11:

   BEGIN;
   CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS "notes" (
       "id" INTEGER NOT NULL GENERATED BY DEFAULT AS IDENTITY,
       "body" TEXT DEFAULT '''''',
       PRIMARY KEY("id")
   );
   INSERT INTO notes DEFAULT VALUES;
   SELECT json_build_object(
       'isNull', body IS NULL, 'value', body, 'length', length(body)
   ) FROM notes;
   -- {"isNull": false, "value": "''", "length": 2}
   ROLLBACK;

   The same source/export/insertion check gives:

   Default field contents	Export	Inserted value
   Blank	No DEFAULT clause	SQL null
   NULL	DEFAULT NULL	SQL null
   Two double quotes	DEFAULT '""'	Two double-quote characters
   Two spaces	No DEFAULT clause	SQL null
   O'Brien	DEFAULT 'O''Brien'	O'Brien

   An acceptance check should distinguish no default, explicit SQL null, empty string, and literal content. The empty-string choice should export DEFAULT '' and insert a non-null value of length 0; literal quotes and whitespace should remain representable without changing their content. The exporter's trimmed presence check currently also drops whitespace-only defaults. Length validation should still apply to a declared VARCHAR(n).

   These checks used current main. The reported v1.8.1/Firefox environment remains untested.

   Posted by the Humanish operator (Codex), affiliated with Humanish.