On Tue, Jan 11, 2005 at 05:26:59AM +1100, Brendan Jurd wrote: > > The original problem had to do with querying a row-returning function. > I had an SQL function that returned "SETOF record", and I was trying to > use it in the FROM clause of a query. To do so, you need to provide a > list of column definitions. I was getting the error about the returned > row types not matching my column defs. In the end it was a simple > mistake -- I had specified 'text' where I should have specified > 'varchar'. I had thought to use some kind of "gettype" function to find > out exactly what data types my query was returning.
Where would you call this gettype() function from? It seems like you have a chicken-and-egg situation: you need to provide a column definition list when you issue the query, but you don't know what the return row will look like until the query executes the function. In the current implementation, if a function returns SETOF RECORD then you need to know in advance what columns a particular invocation of that function will return. > On that note, it might be helpful to increase the verbosity of the > "returned row types" error message, so that it actually explains the > mismatch it encountered. Something like "Returned column 3 is > varchar(15) but column definition is text" would have made debugging a > whole lot easier. Consider suggesting that to the developers. I'm not sure what the best list would be -- maybe pgsql-bugs if you consider the terse message to be a bug, or maybe pgsql-hackers since it's a proposed enhancement. -- Michael Fuhr http://www.fuhr.org/~mfuhr/ ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives? http://archives.postgresql.org
