Re: void function and view select - Mailing list pgsql-general

From Philipp Kraus
Subject Re: void function and view select
Date
Msg-id 90E9692D-8DA1-4E87-A8FB-291AB36665C0@tu-clausthal.de
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: void function and view select  ("David G. Johnston" <david.g.johnston@gmail.com>)
List pgsql-general
Thanks a lot for this answer.


Am 07.05.2018 um 16:06 schrieb David G. Johnston <david.g.johnston@gmail.com>:

On Mon, May 7, 2018 at 6:52 AM, Philipp Kraus <philipp.kraus@tu-clausthal.de> wrote:
Hello,

I have got a complex query with a dynamic column result e.g.:

select builddata('_foo‘);
select * from _foo;

The first is a plsql function which creates a temporary table, but the function returns void.
The second call returns all the data from this table. But the columns of the temporary table are
not strict fixed, so I cannot return a table by the function.
So my question is, how can I build with this two lines a view, so that I can run "select * from myFooView“ or
a function with a dynamic return set of columns e.g. „select myFoo()“?

​Executed queries must have a well-defined column structure at parse/plan-time, execution cannot change the columns that are returned.

By extension, a view's column structure must be stable.  Writing:

CREATE VIEW v1 AS
SELECT * FROM tbl1;

Causes the view to defined with all columns of tbl1 as known at the time of the view's creation (i.e., * is expanded immediately).

In my case this strict definition is not given, the column number and column types are not strict fixed, so based on this a view is not the correct tool.


You might be able to use cursors to accomplish whatever bigger goal you are working toward (I'm not particularly fluent with this technique).

​The more direct way to accomplish this is:

SELECT *
FROM func_call() AS (col1 text, col2 int, col3 date)

i.e., have the function return "SETOF record" and then specify the format of the returned record when calling the function.

but I didn’t find a working solution for my problem at the moment

Phil

pgsql-general by date:

Previous
From: "David G. Johnston"
Date:
Subject: Re: void function and view select
Next
From: Tom Lane
Date:
Subject: Re: Query planner riddle (array-related?)