Re: Languages and Functions

[Richard Huxton <dev(at)archonet(dot)com>]

Robert James wrote:
> 1. How can I get a list of available functions (ie, user defined or 
> contrib)
> using SQL?

To see how PG does it:
  psql -E
  \df

> 2. Is there any performance or other advantage to using PL/pgsql over
> Pl/Perl or Python?

1. It's more likely to be available (not relevant if you set up the 
system yourself).
2. It's probably more tested (because it's more available, not through 
any failing of the other languages)
3. I'd guess for a small function, called for the first time in this 
session you'd avoid any startup costs for the perl interpreter
4. It uses the same code as the SQL engine to handle expressions, so 
there's no conflict between understanding of how floating-point or 
timestamps should behave in corner cases.

Against it is the fact that it's statically typed and fairly inelegant.

--
  Richard Huxton
  Archonet Ltd