Re: [HACKERS] SQL procedures

On 01/02/2018 01:45 PM, Robert Haas wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 2, 2018 at 11:47 AM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
>>> Anyway, I think it would be better to invent an explicit way to
>>> represent whether something is a procedure rather than relying on
>>> overloading prorettype to tell us.
>> +1 --- seems like a new bool column is the thing. Or may we should merge
>> "proisprocedure" with proisagg and proiswindow into an enum prokind?
>> Although that would break some existing client-side code.
> Assuming that we're confident that "procedure" is mutually exclusive
> with "aggregate" and "window function", that seems like the right way
> to go. And I think that's probably the case, both because we're
> deciding not to let procedures be called from SELECT statements
> (though Oracle apparently does) and because we've chosen syntax that
> suggests distinctness: CREATE AGGREGATE, CREATE FUNCTION, CREATE
> PROCEDURE. Window functions are less distinct from the others, since
> they go through CREATE FUNCTION, but it still seems unlikely that we'd
> ever want to try to support a "window procedure".
>

Yeah, but these things don't feel like they belong in the same category.
The fact that we have to ask this question is a symptom of that. A
boolean feels more natural to me here, although I acknowledge it will
result in a tiny amount of catalog bloat. Tom's point about client-side
code is also valid. I don't feel very strongly about it, though.

cheers

andrew

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Andrew Dunstan https://www.2ndQuadrant.com
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