Re: Function: Change data while walking through records

Albe Laurenz *EXTERN* wrote:
>
> stevesub wrote:
>> I keep having this need to create a function that will change the row
>> data
>> as I am walking through the data. For example, I process each row in
>> order,
>> if column1 change from previous row, set column2 to true.
>>
>> Is this possible? I can run another query to modify the data, but that
>> doesn't seem that efficient?
>>
>> Thanks for any help.
>>
>> --
>>
>> An example:
>>
>> --Simple table
>> create table tmp1 (
>> id integer,
>> time timestamp,
>> sequential boolean);
>>
>> insert into tmp1 values (1, '2008-01-01 12:00:00', false),(2,
>> '2008-01-02
>> 12:00:00', false),(3, '2008-01-03 12:00:00', false),(4, '2008-01-08
>> 12:00:00', false),(5, '2008-01-09 12:00:00', false),(6, '2008-01-10
>> 12:00:00', false),(7, '2008-01-15 12:00:00', false),(8, '2008-01-22
>> 12:00:00', false),(9, '2008-01-23 12:00:00', false),(10, '2008-01-25
>> 12:00:00', false);
>>
>> -- I want line: "my_sequential := true;" to effect that table
>> CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION setseq() RETURNS INTEGER AS
>> $BODY$
>> DECLARE
>> my_id integer;
>> my_time integer;
>> my_sequential boolean;
>> old_time integer;
>> change_count integer;
>> BEGIN
>> change_count := 1;
>>
>> for my_id,my_time,my_sequential in
>> select id,extract(day from time),sequential from tmp1 order by time
>> LOOP
>> if (old_time is not null) then
>> if (old_time+1 = my_time) then
>> my_sequential := true; --How do I make this work?
>> change_count := change_count+1;
>> end if;
>> end if;
>> old_time := my_time;
>> END LOOP;
>> return change_count;
>> END;
>> $BODY$
>> LANGUAGE 'plpgsql';
>
> You could use a cursor and UPDATE ... WHERE CURRENT OF for that.
>
> Here are some lines of code:
>
> DECLARE
> ...
> mycur CURSOR FOR select id,extract(day from time),sequential from tmp1
> order by time FOR UPDATE;
> row tmp1%ROWTYPE;
> BEGIN
> ...
> OPEN mycur;
> LOOP
> FETCH mycur INTO row;
> EXIT WHEN NOT FOUND;
> ...
> UPDATE tmp1 SET sequential = TRUE WHERE CURRENT OF mycur;
> ...
> END LOOP;
> CLOSE mycur;
> ...
> END;
>
> Yours,
> Laurenz Albe
>
> --
>
>

Thanks. Follow up question:
It appears that I cannot modify data using the cursor when there is an
'order by' clause (I get: 'ERROR: cursor "mycur" is not a simply updatable
scan of table "tmp1"').

Is there anyway to get around this, via an index or something?

Thanks.
--
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