summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/doc/src/sgml/html/plperl-funcs.html
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorDaniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>2024-04-16 19:46:48 +0000
committerDaniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>2024-04-16 19:46:48 +0000
commit311bcfc6b3acdd6fd152798c7f287ddf74fa2a98 (patch)
tree0ec307299b1dada3701e42f4ca6eda57d708261e /doc/src/sgml/html/plperl-funcs.html
parentInitial commit. (diff)
downloadpostgresql-15-311bcfc6b3acdd6fd152798c7f287ddf74fa2a98.tar.xz
postgresql-15-311bcfc6b3acdd6fd152798c7f287ddf74fa2a98.zip
Adding upstream version 15.4.upstream/15.4upstream
Signed-off-by: Daniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>
Diffstat (limited to 'doc/src/sgml/html/plperl-funcs.html')
-rw-r--r--doc/src/sgml/html/plperl-funcs.html308
1 files changed, 308 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/html/plperl-funcs.html b/doc/src/sgml/html/plperl-funcs.html
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..de579c4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/html/plperl-funcs.html
@@ -0,0 +1,308 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
+<!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>45.1. PL/Perl 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="plperl.html" title="Chapter 45. PL/Perl — Perl Procedural Language" /><link rel="next" href="plperl-data.html" title="45.2. Data Values in PL/Perl" /></head><body id="docContent" class="container-fluid col-10"><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="5" align="center">45.1. PL/Perl Functions and Arguments</th></tr><tr><td width="10%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="plperl.html" title="Chapter 45. PL/Perl — Perl Procedural Language">Prev</a> </td><td width="10%" align="left"><a accesskey="u" href="plperl.html" title="Chapter 45. PL/Perl — Perl Procedural Language">Up</a></td><th width="60%" align="center">Chapter 45. PL/Perl — Perl Procedural Language</th><td width="10%" align="right"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html" title="PostgreSQL 15.4 Documentation">Home</a></td><td width="10%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="plperl-data.html" title="45.2. Data Values in PL/Perl">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr /></div><div class="sect1" id="PLPERL-FUNCS"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both">45.1. PL/Perl Functions and Arguments</h2></div></div></div><p>
+ To create a function in the PL/Perl 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>
+-- function attributes can go here
+AS $$
+ # PL/Perl function body goes here
+$$ LANGUAGE plperl;
+</pre><p>
+
+ The body of the function is ordinary Perl code. In fact, the PL/Perl
+ glue code wraps it inside a Perl subroutine. A PL/Perl function is
+ called in a scalar context, so it can't return a list. You can return
+ non-scalar values (arrays, records, and sets) by returning a reference,
+ as discussed below.
+ </p><p>
+ In a PL/Perl procedure, any return value from the Perl code is ignored.
+ </p><p>
+ PL/Perl also supports anonymous code blocks called with the
+ <a class="xref" href="sql-do.html" title="DO"><span class="refentrytitle">DO</span></a> statement:
+
+</p><pre class="programlisting">
+DO $$
+ # PL/Perl code
+$$ LANGUAGE plperl;
+</pre><p>
+
+ An anonymous code block receives no arguments, and whatever value it
+ might return is discarded. Otherwise it behaves just like a function.
+ </p><div class="note"><h3 class="title">Note</h3><p>
+ The use of named nested subroutines is dangerous in Perl, especially if
+ they refer to lexical variables in the enclosing scope. Because a PL/Perl
+ function is wrapped in a subroutine, any named subroutine you place inside
+ one will be nested. In general, it is far safer to create anonymous
+ subroutines which you call via a coderef. For more information, see the
+ entries for <code class="literal">Variable "%s" will not stay shared</code> and
+ <code class="literal">Variable "%s" is not available</code> in the
+ <span class="citerefentry"><span class="refentrytitle">perldiag</span></span> man page, or
+ search the Internet for <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">perl nested named subroutine</span>”</span>.
+ </p></div><p>
+ The syntax of the <code class="command">CREATE FUNCTION</code> command requires
+ the function body to be written as a string constant. It is usually
+ most convenient to use dollar quoting (see <a class="xref" href="sql-syntax-lexical.html#SQL-SYNTAX-DOLLAR-QUOTING" title="4.1.2.4. Dollar-Quoted String Constants">Section 4.1.2.4</a>) for the string constant.
+ If you choose to use escape string syntax <code class="literal">E''</code>,
+ you must double any single quote marks (<code class="literal">'</code>) and backslashes
+ (<code class="literal">\</code>) used in the body of the function
+ (see <a class="xref" href="sql-syntax-lexical.html#SQL-SYNTAX-STRINGS" title="4.1.2.1. String Constants">Section 4.1.2.1</a>).
+ </p><p>
+ Arguments and results are handled as in any other Perl subroutine:
+ arguments are passed in <code class="varname">@_</code>, and a result value
+ is returned with <code class="literal">return</code> or as the last expression
+ evaluated in the function.
+ </p><p>
+ For example, a function returning the greater of two integer values
+ could be defined as:
+
+</p><pre class="programlisting">
+CREATE FUNCTION perl_max (integer, integer) RETURNS integer AS $$
+ if ($_[0] &gt; $_[1]) { return $_[0]; }
+ return $_[1];
+$$ LANGUAGE plperl;
+</pre><p>
+ </p><div class="note"><h3 class="title">Note</h3><p>
+ Arguments will be converted from the database's encoding to UTF-8
+ for use inside PL/Perl, and then converted from UTF-8 back to the
+ database encoding upon return.
+ </p></div><p>
+ If an SQL null value<a id="id-1.8.10.9.10.1" class="indexterm"></a> is passed to a function,
+ the argument value will appear as <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">undefined</span>”</span> in Perl. The
+ above function definition will not behave very nicely with null
+ inputs (in fact, it will act as though they are zeroes). We could
+ add <code class="literal">STRICT</code> to the function definition to make
+ <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span> do something more reasonable:
+ if a null value is passed, the function will not be called at all,
+ but will just return a null result automatically. Alternatively,
+ we could check for undefined inputs in the function body. For
+ example, suppose that we wanted <code class="function">perl_max</code> with
+ one null and one nonnull argument to return the nonnull argument,
+ rather than a null value:
+
+</p><pre class="programlisting">
+CREATE FUNCTION perl_max (integer, integer) RETURNS integer AS $$
+ my ($x, $y) = @_;
+ if (not defined $x) {
+ return undef if not defined $y;
+ return $y;
+ }
+ return $x if not defined $y;
+ return $x if $x &gt; $y;
+ return $y;
+$$ LANGUAGE plperl;
+</pre><p>
+ As shown above, to return an SQL null value from a PL/Perl
+ function, return an undefined value. This can be done whether the
+ function is strict or not.
+ </p><p>
+ Anything in a function argument that is not a reference is
+ a string, which is in the standard <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span>
+ external text representation for the relevant data type. In the case of
+ ordinary numeric or text types, Perl will just do the right thing and
+ the programmer will normally not have to worry about it. However, in
+ other cases the argument will need to be converted into a form that is
+ more usable in Perl. For example, the <code class="function">decode_bytea</code>
+ function can be used to convert an argument of
+ type <code class="type">bytea</code> into unescaped binary.
+ </p><p>
+ Similarly, values passed back to <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span>
+ must be in the external text representation format. For example, the
+ <code class="function">encode_bytea</code> function can be used to
+ escape binary data for a return value of type <code class="type">bytea</code>.
+ </p><p>
+ One case that is particularly important is boolean values. As just
+ stated, the default behavior for <code class="type">bool</code> values is that they
+ are passed to Perl as text, thus either <code class="literal">'t'</code>
+ or <code class="literal">'f'</code>. This is problematic, since Perl will not
+ treat <code class="literal">'f'</code> as false! It is possible to improve matters
+ by using a <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">transform</span>”</span> (see
+ <a class="xref" href="sql-createtransform.html" title="CREATE TRANSFORM"><span class="refentrytitle">CREATE TRANSFORM</span></a>). Suitable transforms are provided
+ by the <code class="filename">bool_plperl</code> extension. To use it, install
+ the extension:
+</p><pre class="programlisting">
+CREATE EXTENSION bool_plperl; -- or bool_plperlu for PL/PerlU
+</pre><p>
+ Then use the <code class="literal">TRANSFORM</code> function attribute for a
+ PL/Perl function that takes or returns <code class="type">bool</code>, for example:
+</p><pre class="programlisting">
+CREATE FUNCTION perl_and(bool, bool) RETURNS bool
+TRANSFORM FOR TYPE bool
+AS $$
+ my ($a, $b) = @_;
+ return $a &amp;&amp; $b;
+$$ LANGUAGE plperl;
+</pre><p>
+ When this transform is applied, <code class="type">bool</code> arguments will be seen
+ by Perl as being <code class="literal">1</code> or empty, thus properly true or
+ false. If the function result is type <code class="type">bool</code>, it will be true
+ or false according to whether Perl would evaluate the returned value as
+ true.
+ Similar transformations are also performed for boolean query arguments
+ and results of SPI queries performed inside the function
+ (<a class="xref" href="plperl-builtins.html#PLPERL-DATABASE" title="45.3.1. Database Access from PL/Perl">Section 45.3.1</a>).
+ </p><p>
+ Perl can return <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span> arrays as
+ references to Perl arrays. Here is an example:
+
+</p><pre class="programlisting">
+CREATE OR REPLACE function returns_array()
+RETURNS text[][] AS $$
+ return [['a"b','c,d'],['e\\f','g']];
+$$ LANGUAGE plperl;
+
+select returns_array();
+</pre><p>
+ </p><p>
+ Perl passes <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span> arrays as a blessed
+ <code class="type">PostgreSQL::InServer::ARRAY</code> object. This object may be treated as an array
+ reference or a string, allowing for backward compatibility with Perl
+ code written for <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span> versions below 9.1 to
+ run. For example:
+
+</p><pre class="programlisting">
+CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION concat_array_elements(text[]) RETURNS TEXT AS $$
+ my $arg = shift;
+ my $result = "";
+ return undef if (!defined $arg);
+
+ # as an array reference
+ for (@$arg) {
+ $result .= $_;
+ }
+
+ # also works as a string
+ $result .= $arg;
+
+ return $result;
+$$ LANGUAGE plperl;
+
+SELECT concat_array_elements(ARRAY['PL','/','Perl']);
+</pre><p>
+
+ </p><div class="note"><h3 class="title">Note</h3><p>
+ Multidimensional arrays are represented as references to
+ lower-dimensional arrays of references in a way common to every Perl
+ programmer.
+ </p></div><p>
+ </p><p>
+ Composite-type arguments are passed to the function as references
+ to hashes. The keys of the hash are the attribute names of the
+ composite type. Here is an example:
+
+</p><pre class="programlisting">
+CREATE TABLE employee (
+ name text,
+ basesalary integer,
+ bonus integer
+);
+
+CREATE FUNCTION empcomp(employee) RETURNS integer AS $$
+ my ($emp) = @_;
+ return $emp-&gt;{basesalary} + $emp-&gt;{bonus};
+$$ LANGUAGE plperl;
+
+SELECT name, empcomp(employee.*) FROM employee;
+</pre><p>
+ </p><p>
+ A PL/Perl function can return a composite-type result using the same
+ approach: return a reference to a hash that has the required attributes.
+ For example:
+
+</p><pre class="programlisting">
+CREATE TYPE testrowperl AS (f1 integer, f2 text, f3 text);
+
+CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION perl_row() RETURNS testrowperl AS $$
+ return {f2 =&gt; 'hello', f1 =&gt; 1, f3 =&gt; 'world'};
+$$ LANGUAGE plperl;
+
+SELECT * FROM perl_row();
+</pre><p>
+
+ Any columns in the declared result data type that are not present in the
+ hash will be returned as null values.
+ </p><p>
+ Similarly, output arguments of procedures can be returned as a hash
+ reference:
+
+</p><pre class="programlisting">
+CREATE PROCEDURE perl_triple(INOUT a integer, INOUT b integer) AS $$
+ my ($a, $b) = @_;
+ return {a =&gt; $a * 3, b =&gt; $b * 3};
+$$ LANGUAGE plperl;
+
+CALL perl_triple(5, 10);
+</pre><p>
+ </p><p>
+ PL/Perl functions can also return sets of either scalar or
+ composite types. Usually you'll want to return rows one at a
+ time, both to speed up startup time and to keep from queuing up
+ the entire result set in memory. You can do this with
+ <code class="function">return_next</code> as illustrated below. Note that
+ after the last <code class="function">return_next</code>, you must put
+ either <code class="literal">return</code> or (better) <code class="literal">return
+ undef</code>.
+
+</p><pre class="programlisting">
+CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION perl_set_int(int)
+RETURNS SETOF INTEGER AS $$
+ foreach (0..$_[0]) {
+ return_next($_);
+ }
+ return undef;
+$$ LANGUAGE plperl;
+
+SELECT * FROM perl_set_int(5);
+
+CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION perl_set()
+RETURNS SETOF testrowperl AS $$
+ return_next({ f1 =&gt; 1, f2 =&gt; 'Hello', f3 =&gt; 'World' });
+ return_next({ f1 =&gt; 2, f2 =&gt; 'Hello', f3 =&gt; 'PostgreSQL' });
+ return_next({ f1 =&gt; 3, f2 =&gt; 'Hello', f3 =&gt; 'PL/Perl' });
+ return undef;
+$$ LANGUAGE plperl;
+</pre><p>
+
+ For small result sets, you can return a reference to an array that
+ contains either scalars, references to arrays, or references to
+ hashes for simple types, array types, and composite types,
+ respectively. Here are some simple examples of returning the entire
+ result set as an array reference:
+
+</p><pre class="programlisting">
+CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION perl_set_int(int) RETURNS SETOF INTEGER AS $$
+ return [0..$_[0]];
+$$ LANGUAGE plperl;
+
+SELECT * FROM perl_set_int(5);
+
+CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION perl_set() RETURNS SETOF testrowperl AS $$
+ return [
+ { f1 =&gt; 1, f2 =&gt; 'Hello', f3 =&gt; 'World' },
+ { f1 =&gt; 2, f2 =&gt; 'Hello', f3 =&gt; 'PostgreSQL' },
+ { f1 =&gt; 3, f2 =&gt; 'Hello', f3 =&gt; 'PL/Perl' }
+ ];
+$$ LANGUAGE plperl;
+
+SELECT * FROM perl_set();
+</pre><p>
+ </p><p>
+ If you wish to use the <code class="literal">strict</code> pragma with your code you
+ have a few options. For temporary global use you can <code class="command">SET</code>
+ <code class="literal">plperl.use_strict</code> to true.
+ This will affect subsequent compilations of <span class="application">PL/Perl</span>
+ functions, but not functions already compiled in the current session.
+ For permanent global use you can set <code class="literal">plperl.use_strict</code>
+ to true in the <code class="filename">postgresql.conf</code> file.
+ </p><p>
+ For permanent use in specific functions you can simply put:
+</p><pre class="programlisting">
+use strict;
+</pre><p>
+ at the top of the function body.
+ </p><p>
+ The <code class="literal">feature</code> pragma is also available to <code class="function">use</code> if your Perl is version 5.10.0 or higher.
+ </p></div><div class="navfooter"><hr /><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="plperl.html" title="Chapter 45. PL/Perl — Perl Procedural Language">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="plperl.html" title="Chapter 45. PL/Perl — Perl Procedural Language">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="plperl-data.html" title="45.2. Data Values in PL/Perl">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">Chapter 45. PL/Perl — Perl Procedural Language </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html" title="PostgreSQL 15.4 Documentation">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> 45.2. Data Values in PL/Perl</td></tr></table></div></body></html> \ No newline at end of file