Re: RETURNS SETOF primitive returns results in parentheses

On Wed, 2005-10-26 at 10:40 -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> Mario Splivalo <mario(dot)splivalo(at)mobart(dot)hr> writes:
> > biblio3=# select * from php_get_subfield_data_repeating(1,'606a');
> > php_get_subfield_data_repeating1
> > ----------------------------------
> > (Anđeli)
> > (ofsajd)
> > (2 rows)
>
> > I have return values in parentheses.
>
> You're getting bit by plpgsql's perhaps-excessive willingness to convert
> datatypes. Your returnValue variable is not a varchar, it is a record
> that happens to contain one varchar field. When you do "RETURN NEXT
> returnValue", plpgsql has to coerce that record value to varchar, and
> it does that by converting the record value to text ... which produces
> the parenthesized data format specified at
> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.0/static/rowtypes.html#AEN5604

Wo-ha, makes perfect sense. So, I'd go by with declaring the rec as
varchar, instead as of a record. Wich is what I should do in the first
place.

Thnx for pointing that out. :)

Mike