PostgreSQL
Chapter 41. Procedural Languages
Table of Contents
PostgreSQL allows user-defined functions to be written in other languages besides SQL and C. These other languages are generically called procedural languages (PLs). For a function written in a procedural language, the database server has no built-in knowledge about how to interpret the function’s source text. Instead, the task is passed to a special handler that knows the details of the language. The handler could either do all the work of parsing, syntax analysis, execution, etc. itself, or it could serve as “[.quote]#glue”# between PostgreSQL and an existing implementation of a programming language. The handler itself is a C language function compiled into a shared object and loaded on demand, just like any other C function.
There are currently four procedural languages available in the standard PostgreSQL distribution: PL/pgSQL (Chapter 42), PL/Tcl (Chapter 43), PL/Perl (Chapter 44), and PL/Python (Chapter 45). There are additional procedural languages available that are not included in the core distribution. Appendix H has information about finding them. In addition other languages can be defined by users; the basics of developing a new procedural language are covered in Chapter 55.
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40.7. Rules Versus Triggers |
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