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+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><title>44.2. PL/Tcl Functions and Arguments</title><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="stylesheet.css" /><link rev="made" href="pgsql-docs@lists.postgresql.org" /><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets Vsnapshot" /><link rel="prev" href="pltcl-overview.html" title="44.1. Overview" /><link rel="next" href="pltcl-data.html" title="44.3. Data Values in PL/Tcl" /></head><body id="docContent" class="container-fluid col-10"><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="5" align="center">44.2. PL/Tcl Functions and Arguments</th></tr><tr><td width="10%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="pltcl-overview.html" title="44.1. Overview">Prev</a> </td><td width="10%" align="left"><a accesskey="u" href="pltcl.html" title="Chapter 44. PL/Tcl — Tcl Procedural Language">Up</a></td><th width="60%" align="center">Chapter 44. PL/Tcl — Tcl Procedural Language</th><td width="10%" align="right"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html" title="PostgreSQL 15.5 Documentation">Home</a></td><td width="10%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="pltcl-data.html" title="44.3. Data Values in PL/Tcl">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr /></div><div class="sect1" id="PLTCL-FUNCTIONS"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both">44.2. PL/Tcl Functions and Arguments</h2></div></div></div><p>
+ To create a function in the <span class="application">PL/Tcl</span> language, use
+ the standard <a class="xref" href="sql-createfunction.html" title="CREATE FUNCTION"><span class="refentrytitle">CREATE FUNCTION</span></a> syntax:
+
+</p><pre class="programlisting">
+CREATE FUNCTION <em class="replaceable"><code>funcname</code></em> (<em class="replaceable"><code>argument-types</code></em>) RETURNS <em class="replaceable"><code>return-type</code></em> AS $$
+ # PL/Tcl function body
+$$ LANGUAGE pltcl;
+</pre><p>
+
+ <span class="application">PL/TclU</span> is the same, except that the language has to be specified as
+ <code class="literal">pltclu</code>.
+ </p><p>
+ The body of the function is simply a piece of Tcl script.
+ When the function is called, the argument values are passed to the
+ Tcl script as variables named <code class="literal">1</code>
+ ... <code class="literal"><em class="replaceable"><code>n</code></em></code>. The result is
+ returned from the Tcl code in the usual way, with
+ a <code class="literal">return</code> statement. In a procedure, the return value
+ from the Tcl code is ignored.
+ </p><p>
+ For example, a function
+ returning the greater of two integer values could be defined as:
+
+</p><pre class="programlisting">
+CREATE FUNCTION tcl_max(integer, integer) RETURNS integer AS $$
+ if {$1 &gt; $2} {return $1}
+ return $2
+$$ LANGUAGE pltcl STRICT;
+</pre><p>
+
+ Note the clause <code class="literal">STRICT</code>, which saves us from
+ having to think about null input values: if a null value is passed, the
+ function will not be called at all, but will just return a null
+ result automatically.
+ </p><p>
+ In a nonstrict function,
+ if the actual value of an argument is null, the corresponding
+ <code class="literal">$<em class="replaceable"><code>n</code></em></code> variable will be set to an empty string.
+ To detect whether a particular argument is null, use the function
+ <code class="literal">argisnull</code>. For example, suppose that we wanted <code class="function">tcl_max</code>
+ with one null and one nonnull argument to return the nonnull
+ argument, rather than null:
+
+</p><pre class="programlisting">
+CREATE FUNCTION tcl_max(integer, integer) RETURNS integer AS $$
+ if {[argisnull 1]} {
+ if {[argisnull 2]} { return_null }
+ return $2
+ }
+ if {[argisnull 2]} { return $1 }
+ if {$1 &gt; $2} {return $1}
+ return $2
+$$ LANGUAGE pltcl;
+</pre><p>
+ </p><p>
+ As shown above,
+ to return a null value from a PL/Tcl function, execute
+ <code class="literal">return_null</code>. This can be done whether the
+ function is strict or not.
+ </p><p>
+ Composite-type arguments are passed to the function as Tcl
+ arrays. The element names of the array are the attribute names
+ of the composite type. If an attribute in the passed row has the
+ null value, it will not appear in the array. Here is an example:
+
+</p><pre class="programlisting">
+CREATE TABLE employee (
+ name text,
+ salary integer,
+ age integer
+);
+
+CREATE FUNCTION overpaid(employee) RETURNS boolean AS $$
+ if {200000.0 &lt; $1(salary)} {
+ return "t"
+ }
+ if {$1(age) &lt; 30 &amp;&amp; 100000.0 &lt; $1(salary)} {
+ return "t"
+ }
+ return "f"
+$$ LANGUAGE pltcl;
+</pre><p>
+ </p><p>
+ PL/Tcl functions can return composite-type results, too. To do this,
+ the Tcl code must return a list of column name/value pairs matching
+ the expected result type. Any column names omitted from the list
+ are returned as nulls, and an error is raised if there are unexpected
+ column names. Here is an example:
+
+</p><pre class="programlisting">
+CREATE FUNCTION square_cube(in int, out squared int, out cubed int) AS $$
+ return [list squared [expr {$1 * $1}] cubed [expr {$1 * $1 * $1}]]
+$$ LANGUAGE pltcl;
+</pre><p>
+ </p><p>
+ Output arguments of procedures are returned in the same way, for example:
+
+</p><pre class="programlisting">
+CREATE PROCEDURE tcl_triple(INOUT a integer, INOUT b integer) AS $$
+ return [list a [expr {$1 * 3}] b [expr {$2 * 3}]]
+$$ LANGUAGE pltcl;
+
+CALL tcl_triple(5, 10);
+</pre><p>
+ </p><div class="tip"><h3 class="title">Tip</h3><p>
+ The result list can be made from an array representation of the
+ desired tuple with the <code class="literal">array get</code> Tcl command. For example:
+
+</p><pre class="programlisting">
+CREATE FUNCTION raise_pay(employee, delta int) RETURNS employee AS $$
+ set 1(salary) [expr {$1(salary) + $2}]
+ return [array get 1]
+$$ LANGUAGE pltcl;
+</pre><p>
+ </p></div><p>
+ PL/Tcl functions can return sets. To do this, the Tcl code should
+ call <code class="function">return_next</code> once per row to be returned,
+ passing either the appropriate value when returning a scalar type,
+ or a list of column name/value pairs when returning a composite type.
+ Here is an example returning a scalar type:
+
+</p><pre class="programlisting">
+CREATE FUNCTION sequence(int, int) RETURNS SETOF int AS $$
+ for {set i $1} {$i &lt; $2} {incr i} {
+ return_next $i
+ }
+$$ LANGUAGE pltcl;
+</pre><p>
+
+ and here is one returning a composite type:
+
+</p><pre class="programlisting">
+CREATE FUNCTION table_of_squares(int, int) RETURNS TABLE (x int, x2 int) AS $$
+ for {set i $1} {$i &lt; $2} {incr i} {
+ return_next [list x $i x2 [expr {$i * $i}]]
+ }
+$$ LANGUAGE pltcl;
+</pre><p>
+ </p></div><div class="navfooter"><hr /><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="pltcl-overview.html" title="44.1. Overview">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="pltcl.html" title="Chapter 44. PL/Tcl — Tcl Procedural Language">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="pltcl-data.html" title="44.3. Data Values in PL/Tcl">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">44.1. Overview </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html" title="PostgreSQL 15.5 Documentation">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> 44.3. Data Values in PL/Tcl</td></tr></table></div></body></html> \ No newline at end of file