show-all-versions-of-an-operator.md

Show All Versions Of An Operator

We may be familiar with PostgreSQL's containment operator (@>). Maybe we've used it with an array before, so we understand the general idea. But now we are curious about what are the other types with which this containment operator can be used.

We can quickly find out the answer with the \do command in psql:

> \do @>
                               List of operators
   Schema   | Name | Left arg type | Right arg type | Result type | Description
------------+------+---------------+----------------+-------------+-------------
 pg_catalog | @>   | aclitem[]     | aclitem        | boolean     | contains
 pg_catalog | @>   | anyarray      | anyarray       | boolean     | contains
 pg_catalog | @>   | anyrange      | anyelement     | boolean     | contains
 pg_catalog | @>   | anyrange      | anyrange       | boolean     | contains
 pg_catalog | @>   | box           | box            | boolean     | contains
 pg_catalog | @>   | box           | point          | boolean     | contains
 pg_catalog | @>   | circle        | circle         | boolean     | contains
 pg_catalog | @>   | circle        | point          | boolean     | contains
 pg_catalog | @>   | jsonb         | jsonb          | boolean     | contains
 pg_catalog | @>   | path          | point          | boolean     | contains
 pg_catalog | @>   | polygon       | point          | boolean     | contains
 pg_catalog | @>   | polygon       | polygon        | boolean     | contains
 pg_catalog | @>   | tsquery       | tsquery        | boolean     | contains

The Left arg type and Right arg type columns tell us what we need to know.

This \do command can be used with any operator for a similar set of information.

h/t Bruce Momjian