While looking to implement the ODBC replace() function (replace occurences of $2 in $1 by $3), I found that it could be expressed as:
CREATE FUNCTION replace(text, text, text) RETURNS text AS ' select case when position($2 in $1) = 0 or char_length($2) = 0 then $1 else substring($1 from 1 for position($2 in $1) - 1) || $3 || replace(substring($1 from position($2 in $1) + char_length($2)), $2, $3) end; ' LANGUAGE SQL WITH (isstrict); Now this command doesn't actually work because it requires the replace() function to exist already. But it does work if one first creates a stub replace() function and then uses CREATE OR REPLACE. (So much about the claim that procedural languages are a security hole because they allow infinite loops.) I was wondering whether, as a future project, we could make this more convenient by parsing the body of the function with the binding of the function already in effect. Comments? -- Peter Eisentraut [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://funkturm.homeip.net/~peter ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command (send "unregister YourEmailAddressHere" to [EMAIL PROTECTED])