Re: How to count elements in an array?

Grant,

The only way I know to enumarate arrays is procedural. This is a good
reason to stay away from arrays except in buffer and temporary tables
(aside from the fact that array columns violate the relational principle
of atomicity).

The following sample procedure, paraphrased from Bruce Momjian's book
(which you should buy, hint, hint) illustrates enumerating an array of
INT4 values:

CREATE FUNCTION count_array ( INT4[] ) RETURNS INT2
AS '
DECLARE
array_loop INT2;
array_col ALIAS FOR $1;
BEGIN
array_loop := 1;
WHILE array_col[array_loop] LOOP
array_loop = array_loop + 1;
END LOOP;
array_loop := array_loop - 1
RETURN array_loop;
END;'
LANGUAGE 'plpgsql';

-Josh
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