return_next for plperl (was Re: call for help)

At 2005-05-21 20:18:50 +0530, ams(at)oryx(dot)com wrote:
>
> > The second issue is where plperl returns a large result set.

I have attached the following seven patches to address this problem:

1. Trivial. Replaces some errant spaces with tabs.

2. Trivial. Fixes the spelling of Jan's name, and gets rid of many
inane, useless, annoying, and often misleading comments. Here's
a sample: "plperl_init_all() - Initialize all".

(I have tried to add some useful comments here and there, and will
continue to do so now and again.)

3. Trivial. Splits up some long lines.

4. Converts SRFs in PL/Perl to use a Tuplestore and SFRM_Materialize
to return the result set, based on the PL/PgSQL model.

There are two major consequences: result sets will spill to disk when
they can no longer fit in work_mem; and "select foo_srf()" no longer
works. (I didn't lose sleep over the latter, since that form is not
valid in PL/PgSQL, and it's not documented in PL/Perl.)

5. Trivial, but important. Fixes use of "undef" instead of undef. This
would cause empty functions to fail in bizarre ways. I suspect that
there's still another (old) bug here. I'll investigate further.

6. Moves the majority of (4) out into a new plperl_return_next()
function, to make it possible to expose the functionality to
Perl; cleans up some of the code besides.

7. Add an spi_return_next function for use in Perl code.

If you want to apply the patches and try them out, 8-composite.diff is
what you should use. (Note: my patches depend upon Andrew's use-strict
and %_SHARED patches being applied.)

Here's something to try:

create or replace function foo() returns setof record as $$
$i = 0;
for ("World", "PostgreSQL", "PL/Perl") {
spi_return_next({f1=>++$i, f2=>'Hello', f3=>$_});
}
return;
$$ language plperl;
select * from foo() as (f1 integer, f2 text, f3 text);

(Many thanks to Andrews Dunstan and Supernews for their help.)

Questions, comments, and suggestions welcome.

-- ams
Just Another Cut-and-Paste Hacker