Question

Before I buy something better than Shared Database on Heroku I would like to know if I will be able to , let’s say create custom CASTS in postgresql?
For this I need to log in as an user with admin privileges (data-type owner, for example bigint owner).

Answer 1

We don’t give you a superuser role on any of our databases for the security and stability of all our customers.

While the provided role does own the schema and database you connect to, it does not currently also own types. This is what I’d call an obscure use case though, as the alternative of implicit casting is clearer and achieves the same purpose.

There are other situations where superuser privileges is ideal, for example the ability to run pg_cancel_backend or install extension. We’ve solved both of these cases via a backport to the 9.0 lineup (available by default in 9.1) and extension whitelisting respectively.

EDIT – an example comparing text types to integers.

For implicit casting, can specify the type using some_value::new_type notation: some_string::integer:

del8a7mgo0cml=> create table cast_test (number integer, string text);
CREATE TABLE
del8a7mgo0cml=> insert into cast_test VALUES (1, '1');
INSERT 0 1
del8a7mgo0cml=> insert into cast_test VALUES (2, '1');
INSERT 0 1
del8a7mgo0cml=> insert into cast_test VALUES (2, '2');
INSERT 0 1
del8a7mgo0cml=> select * from cast_test;
 number | string 
--------+--------
      1 | 1
      2 | 1
      2 | 2
(3 rows)
del8a7mgo0cml=> select * from cast_test where number = string::integer;
 number | string 
--------+--------
      1 | 1
      2 | 2
(2 rows)