Re: language interface in postgresql

On 8/14/07, Jasbinder Singh Bali <jsbali(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:

> Let me fine tune my question here. What I mean to say is the way we can
> write stored procedures in C, perl etc in Postgres specifying the language
> parameter at the end of stored procedure, compared to that, in SQL Server
> 2000 I've seen SP writing in pure SQL only.
> Can you write Stored Procedures in SQL Server 2000 or Oracle in different
> programing languages as well ?

AFAIK SQL Server 2000 only has a C interface as the other option; CLR
hosting was added in SQL Server 2005. Because the CLR is a virtual
machine that runs compiled bytecode, and compilers for all of the
available languages are not necessarily available at runtime, it
doesn't make sense to specify such code in source form. The process
is more like creating a function in C in PostgreSQL (compile and load
a shared library). Details here, if you're curious:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms345136.aspx

I don't know what Oracle supports.

I'm certainly not familiar with all of the databases out there, but I
can't think of any offhand that support different languages in the
same form as PostgreSQL. Aside from VM platforms like the CLR, I
can't think of any with the same range either. Most databases seem to
pick a specific language or two in script-style form, and possibly
support binary extensions (written in C or some other native language)
for work beyond that.