Support argument typing in (ad-hoc) queries

[benghippware]

Suppose I have a query like this:

SELECT COUNT(*) foo WHERE timestamp > ?

and a variable TimeStamp.

1/ If I execute this as a prepared query, and supply {0, TimeStamp, 0} as the argument, it works.

2/ If I execute this as an ad-hoc query, and supply Timestamp as the argument, seestar_cqltypes:encode_value_with_size() encodes it as a 32-bit integer.

This fails with a Cassandra error message "Expected 8 or 0 byte long for date (4)", presumably because it's expecting a 64-bit value because it's a timestamp column.

3/ If I execute this as an ad-hoc query and supply <<TimeStamp:64/signed>> as the argument, it works.

So now, here's my question ...

Whilst I can use method (3) to do what I want ... is it worth considering whether a better solution is to support providing argument typing for ad-hoc queries?

(It might also be useful for prepared queries as well.)

One possibility is ... Instead of supplying arguments as Timestamp, they could also be supplied as {timestamp, Timestamp} where the first element is the argument type.

Another possibility is to supply (optional) typing in the query string ie.

SELECT COUNT(*) foo WHERE timestamp > %t

where %t means a timestamp argument, %s means a string argument etc.

Do you think this is a good idea, maybe for the long-term?