Re: New function normal_rand_array function to contrib/tablefunc.

On Mon, 4 Nov 2024 at 14:46, Aleksander Alekseev
<aleksander(at)timescale(dot)com> wrote:
>
> Any reason not to have an interface as simple and straightforward as
> this:
>
> =# SELECT array_random(1, 10, random(0, 3)) FROM generate_series( ... )
> {5}
> {1, 3, 8}
> {7, 6}
> ...
>

Yeah, that looks like a neater API.

Something that bothers me somewhat is that it's completely trivial for
the user to write such a function for themselves, so is it really
useful enough to include in core?

The other question is whether it's an array function or a random
function. I.e., should it be listed in "Table 9.55. Array Functions",
in which case the name array_random() makes sense, or should it be
listed in "Table 9.6. Random Functions", in which case it should
probably be called random_array(). I think the latter makes more
sense, since it's a function that generates random values, more
similar to the random(min, max) functions. Also I think it's more
useful if it shares the same PRNG, controlled by setseed(), and it
makes sense to group all such functions together.

Regards,
Dean