Chapter 9. PL/pgSQL
Description
This section is from the "Practical PostgreSQL" book, by John Worsley and Joshua Drake. Also available from Amazon: Practical PostgreSQL.
Chapter 9. PL/pgSQL
- Table of Contents
- Adding PL/pgSQL to your Database
- Creating Functions
- Handling RECORDS
- PL/pgSQL and Triggers
PL/pgSQL is a loadable procedural language for the PostgreSQL database system. PL/pgSQL is similar to the Oracle procedural language PL/SQL. The next section on adding PL/pgSQL to the database will walk you through the steps to loading the PL/pgSQL language for a database. PL/pgSQL is a powerful language that greatly increase the flexibility of the PostgreSQL DBMS. Below is a list of potential benefits to using PL/pgSQL.
You can define all C language functions, except those used for input/output. This includes calculated functions for user defined types.
You have access to all of the PostgreSQL, data types, operators, and functions.
You have access to SQL (Structured Query Language). Developers can create complex programs using PL/pgSQL and SQL.
SQL by default allows only the execution of a single statement at a time.You can achieve performance gains due to the processing of multiple statements at one time.
You will also gain large scale portability with the use of PL/pgSQL. This is a result of PL/pgSQL being compatible with all platforms that PostgreSQL supports.
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