Postgres Dynamic Query Function

sql postgresql plpgsql
j.gardner117 picture j.gardner117 · May 17, 2012 · Viewed 36.5k times · Source

I need to create a function that will run a query and return the results with the table name and the column name being arugments given to the function. I currently have this:

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION qa_scf(tname character varying, cname character varying)
RETURNS SETOF INT AS
$BODY$
BEGIN
RETURN QUERY SELECT * FROM tname WHERE cname !='AK' AND cname!='CK';
END;
$BODY$
LANGUAGE plpgsql VOLATILE
COST 100
ROWS 1000;

This gives me the error "Relation 'tname' des not exist" when run. I'm new to function creating for Postgres, so any help is appreciated. I feel like the return int is wrong, but I don't know what else to put to make it return all columns for the rows returned. Thanks!

Answer

Matthew Wood picture Matthew Wood · May 17, 2012

You cannot use a variable in place of an identifier like that. You need to do it with dynamic queries. It will look something like this:

EXECUTE 'SELECT * FROM ' || quote_ident(tname) 
        || ' WHERE ' || quote_ident(cname) || ' NOT IN (''AK'',''CK'');'
INTO result_var;

If you are using PostgreSQL 9.1 or above, you can use the format() function which makes constructing this string much easier.

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