so long as all the trailing arguments are of the same (non-array) type.
The function receives them as a single array argument (which is why they
have to all be the same type).
It might be useful to extend this facility to aggregates, but this patch
doesn't do that.
This patch imposes a noticeable slowdown on function lookup --- a follow-on
patch will fix that by adding a redundant column to pg_proc.
Pavel Stehule
HINT fields to a user-thrown error message, and to specify the SQLSTATE
error code to use. The syntax has also been tweaked so that the
Oracle-compatible case "RAISE exception_name" works (though you won't get a
very nice error message if you just write that much). Lastly, support
the Oracle-compatible syntax "RAISE" with no parameters to re-throw
the current error from within an EXCEPTION block.
In passing, allow the syntax SQLSTATE 'nnnnn' within EXCEPTION lists,
so that there is a way to trap errors with custom SQLSTATE codes.
Pavel Stehule and Tom Lane
except that it returns the string 'NULL', rather than a SQL null, when called
with a null argument. This is often a much more useful behavior for
constructing dynamic queries. Add more discussion to the documentation
about how to use these functions.
Brendan Jurd
sugar for PL/PgSQL set-returning functions that want to return the result
of evaluating a query; it should also be more efficient than repeated
RETURN NEXT statements. Based on an earlier patch from Pavel Stehule.
name. With this patch, it is always possible for the user to qualify a
plpgsql variable name if needed to avoid ambiguity. While there is much more
work to be done in this area, this simple change removes one unnecessary
incompatibility with Oracle. Per discussion.
of variable substitution and plan caching behavior in dedicated sections.
(A lot of this material existed already, but was scattered in various places
in the chapter.) Reorganize material a little bit, mostly to try to avoid
diving into deep details in the first introductory sections. Document some
fine points that had escaped treatment before, notably the ability to qualify
plpgsql variable names with block labels. Some minor wordsmithing here and
there.
with a plpgsql-defined cursor. The underlying mechanism for this is that the
main SQL engine will now take "WHERE CURRENT OF $n" where $n is a refcursor
parameter. Not sure if we should document that fact or consider it an
implementation detail. Per discussion with Pavel Stehule.
were accepted by prior Postgres releases. This takes care of the loose end
left by the preceding patch to downgrade implicit casts-to-text. To avoid
breaking desirable behavior for array concatenation, introduce a new
polymorphic pseudo-type "anynonarray" --- the added concatenation operators
are actually text || anynonarray and anynonarray || text.
Standard English uses "may", "can", and "might" in different ways:
may - permission, "You may borrow my rake."
can - ability, "I can lift that log."
might - possibility, "It might rain today."
Unfortunately, in conversational English, their use is often mixed, as
in, "You may use this variable to do X", when in fact, "can" is a better
choice. Similarly, "It may crash" is better stated, "It might crash".
Also update two error messages mentioned in the documenation to match.
more, and standard_conforming_strings less, because in the future non-E
strings will not treat backslashes specially.
Also use E'' strings where backslashes are used in examples. (The
existing examples would have drawn warnings.)
Backpatch to 8.2.X.
merely a matter of fixing the error check, since the underlying Portal
infrastructure already handles it. This in turn allows these statements
to be used in some existing plpgsql and plperl contexts, such as a
plpgsql FOR loop. Also, do some marginal code cleanup in places that
were being sloppy about distinguishing SELECT from SELECT INTO.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Add dynamic record inspection to PL/PgSQL, useful for generic triggers:
tval2 := r.(cname);
or
columns := r.(*);
Titus von Boxberg
An article at WebProNews quoted from the PG docs as to the merits of
stored procedures. I have added a bit more material on their merits,
as well as making a few changes to improve the introductions to
PL/Perl and PL/Tcl.
Chris Browne