Parse bpchar to ShortString?

[oxinabox]

just a random thought.
Since bpchar i.e. char(n) is fixed length, it is probably going to be short.
And then we could use https://github.com/xiaodaigh/ShortStrings.jl/
Though that doesn't yet have strip implemented on it, would be easy to do and would run fast though.

[iamed2]

It's probably going to be short, but what if it isn't?

We can use libpq_c.PQfmod to get the max length of a bpchar column (plus 4 because reasons), and only use ShortStrings when appropriate, but that requires adding some more complicated code or a special case to this code.

We should also rework the parsing code to make it easier to parse bpchar as any string type, not just String (just doing this would let people specify they want ShortStrings for each bpchar column without making it the default or introducing a dependency).

[oxinabox]

I am not sure pragmatically how useful this is,
since does anyone use char(n)/bpchar with postgres, given varchar is apparently just as fast?

[iamed2]

Probably in legacy or migrated systems.

There are also databases that can communicate with libpq that aren't PostgreSQL, like Redshift.