Thread: Stored Procedure / function and their result

Hi,

I would like to know if there is a better way how to retrieve result from a stored procedure (function) than to use 'AS res(col1 varchar, col2 timestamp,..)'

for example, here is a stored procedure :
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION SP_A_003(username VARCHAR)
  RETURNS SETOF RECORD AS
$BODY$
DECLARE
    myrec RECORD;
BEGIN
    FOR myrec IN
        select
            users.user_name,
            users.user_firstname,
            accounts.account_login,
            statususer.statususer_type
        from accounts, users, statususer
        where
            accounts.account_login = $1
        AND
            accounts.account_id = users.user_account_id
        AND
            users.user_status_id = statususer.statususer_id
    LOOP
        RETURN NEXT myrec;
    END LOOP;
RETURN;
END;
$BODY$
  LANGUAGE 'plpgsql' VOLATILE;
...

here is how i call it :


select * from sp_a_003('my_user_name')
as result
(
    name varchar,
    firstname varchar,
    userlogin varchar,
    statustype varchar
);

to understand well, in my stored procedure i only select a part of each table (so i build a "composite" record) therefore i understood that SETOF RECORD AS was the best solution for that.

however the result call is catastrophic when stored procedure returns several fields. when it is more than 2 fields i'm already "angry" to write :
as result
(
    name varchar,
    firstname varchar,
    userlogin varchar,
    statustype varchar,
    ....
);

I would like to avoid this "as result (...)", so is there a better solution ?

thanks a lot,




--
Alain
------------------------------------
Windows XP SP2
PostgreSQL 8.1.4
Apache 2.0.58
PHP 5

On Mon, Mar 19, 2007 at 01:54:14PM +0100, Alain Roger wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I would like to know if there is a better way how to retrieve result from a
> stored procedure (function) than to use 'AS res(col1 varchar, col2
> timestamp,..)'

Sure, create a type with the relevent field name and use that in you
function declaration:

CREATE TYPE mytype AS S res(col1 varchar, col2 timestamp,..);

> for example, here is a stored procedure :
> CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION SP_A_003(username VARCHAR)
>  RETURNS SETOF RECORD AS

And change that to:

RETURNS SETOF mytype AS

And you're done.

Have a nice day,
--
Martijn van Oosterhout   <kleptog@svana.org>   http://svana.org/kleptog/
> From each according to his ability. To each according to his ability to litigate.

Alain Roger wrote:
> I would like to know if there is a better way how to retrieve
> result from a stored procedure (function) than to use 'AS
> res(col1 varchar, col2 timestamp,..)'
>
> for example, here is a stored procedure :
> CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION SP_A_003(username VARCHAR)
>   RETURNS SETOF RECORD AS
[...]

Yes, there are two ways to avoid this.

1.) define a composite type:

CREATE TYPE sp_a_result (
    name varchar,
    firstname varchar,
    userlogin varchar,
    statustype varchar
);

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION SP_A_003 (username VARCHAR)
  RETURNS SETOF sp_a_result AS ...

2.) Use output parameters (for Versions >= 8.1):

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION SP_A_003 (
  username IN VARCHAR,
  name OUT varchar,
  firstname OUT varchar,
  userlogin OUT varchar,
  statustype OUT varchar
) RETURNS SETOF record AS ...

You can find a more verbose description in
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/xfunc-sql.html

Yours,
Laurenz Albe