Thread: Going beyond sql
Hi, I'd like to run some scripts against a postgres database but has more than just standard SQL commands. I'd like to be able to use conditional statements (i.e. if .. .then ... ) and such. I had a look and can see that I could use pgplsql for this. However it seems that it must be part of a function. Is there any way of doing this without the function coating as these commands would be a once off? Jon.
On Wed, Aug 03, 2005 at 06:50:48AM +1000, Jon wrote: > I'd like to run some scripts against a postgres database but has more > than just standard SQL commands. I'd like to be able to use conditional > statements (i.e. if .. .then ... ) and such. I had a look and can see > that I could use pgplsql for this. However it seems that it must be part > of a function. Is there any way of doing this without the function > coating as these commands would be a once off? PostgreSQL's implementation of SQL doesn't have control structures (aside from simple conditionals like CASE expressions), so you'll have to write a server-side function in a language like PL/pgSQL or do the control in client-side code. -- Michael Fuhr
Jon wrote: > Hi, > > I'd like to run some scripts against a postgres database but has more > than just standard SQL commands. I'd like to be able to use > conditional statements (i.e. if .. .then ... ) and such. I had a look > and can see that I could use pgplsql for this. However it seems that > it must be part of a function. Is there any way of doing this without > the function coating as these commands would be a once off? > > Jon. > Have you considered writing them in a programming language that connects to the database? I have to write one-time database code at times, and writing it in Perl is the most efficient way to do it for me. But then I also wrote an extremely simple wrapper to the DBI / DBD::Pg module so that I don't have to muck with the extra house keeping steps in my programs. -- Thanks, Laura Vance Systems Engineer