This feature was added a long time ago, in 7c1e67bd5 and eb121ba2c,
but never documented in any user-facing way. (Documentation added
in 6126d3e70 was commented out almost immediately, in 8272fc3f7.)
That's because, while this syntax is defined by SQL:99, our
implementation is only vaguely related to the standard's semantics.
The standard appears to intend a run-time not parse-time test, and
it definitely intends that the test should understand subtype
relationships.
No one has stepped up to fix that in the intervening years, but
people keep coming across the code and asking why it's not documented.
Let's just get rid of it: if anyone ever wants to make it work per
spec, they can easily recover whatever parts of this code are still
of value from our git history.
If there's anyone out there who's actually using this despite its
undocumented status, they can switch to using pg_typeof() instead,
eg. "pg_typeof(something) = 'mytype'::regtype". That gives
essentially the same semantics as what our IS OF code did.
(We didn't have that function last time this was discussed, or
we would have ripped out IS OF then.)
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/CAKFQuwZ2pTc-DSkOiTfjauqLYkNREeNZvWmeg12Q-_69D+sYZA@mail.gmail.com
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/BAY20-F23E9F2B4DAB3E4E88D3623F99B0@phx.gbl
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/3E7CF81D.1000203@joeconway.com
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