plpythonu AKA am I crazy? or....

When I create a function with an argument or return type of say an
integer the data type seems to be passed properly. When trying for
instance to send or return an integer array it always seems to be passed
as a string which is very nearly useless. Is there something I am doing
wrong... or failing that is there just a better way to pass arrays?

is this a quality of any embedded language or perhaps plpython in
particular?
VERSION = 'PostgreSQL 7.4.1 on i386-portbld-freebsd5.1...

example follows:


CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION zippy(int) RETURNS int AS '
from types import *
plpy.notice(typ e(args[0]))
return args[0]
' LANGUAGE plpythonu;

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION zippy(int[]) RETURNS int[] AS '
from types import *
plpy.notice(typ e(args[0]))
return args[0]
' LANGUAGE plpythonu;


foo=# SELECT zippy(5);
NOTICE: (<type 'int'>,)
zippy
-------
5
(1 row)

foo=# SELECT zippy(CAST('{5, 6,7}' AS int[]));
NOTICE: (<type 'str'>,)
zippy
---------
{5,6,7}
(1 row)



---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your
joining column's datatypes do not match