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9.17. Array Functions and Operators

Table 9-39 shows the operators available for array types.

Table 9-39. array Operators

Operator	Description	Example	Result
`=`	equal	`ARRAY[1.1,2.1,3.1]::int[] = ARRAY[1,2,3]`	`t`
`<>`	not equal	`ARRAY[1,2,3] <> ARRAY[1,2,4]`	`t`
`<`	less than	`ARRAY[1,2,3] < ARRAY[1,2,4]`	`t`
`>`	greater than	`ARRAY[1,4,3] > ARRAY[1,2,4]`	`t`
`<=`	less than or equal	`ARRAY[1,2,3] <= ARRAY[1,2,3]`	`t`
`>=`	greater than or equal	`ARRAY[1,4,3] >= ARRAY[1,4,3]`	`t`
`@>`	contains	`ARRAY[1,4,3] @> ARRAY[3,1]`	`t`
`<@`	is contained by	`ARRAY[2,7] <@ ARRAY[1,7,4,2,6]`	`t`
`&&`	overlap (have elements in common)	`ARRAY[1,4,3] && ARRAY[2,1]`	`t`
`\|\|`	array-to-array concatenation	`ARRAY[1,2,3] \|\| ARRAY[4,5,6]`	`{1,2,3,4,5,6}`
`\|\|`	array-to-array concatenation	`ARRAY[1,2,3] \|\| ARRAY[[4,5,6],[7,8,9]]`	`{{1,2,3},{4,5,6},{7,8,9}}`
`\|\|`	element-to-array concatenation	`3 \|\| ARRAY[4,5,6]`	`{3,4,5,6}`
`\|\|`	array-to-element concatenation	`ARRAY[4,5,6] \|\| 7`	`{4,5,6,7}`

Array comparisons compare the array contents element-by-element, using the default B-Tree comparison function for the element data type. In multidimensional arrays the elements are visited in row-major order (last subscript varies most rapidly). If the contents of two arrays are equal but the dimensionality is different, the first difference in the dimensionality information determines the sort order. (This is a change from versions of PostgreSQL prior to 8.2: older versions would claim that two arrays with the same contents were equal, even if the number of dimensions or subscript ranges were different.)

See Section 8.14 for more details about array operator behavior.

Table 9-40 shows the functions available for use with array types. See Section 8.14 for more discussion and examples of the use of these functions.

Table 9-40. array Functions

Function	Return Type	Description	Example	Result
`array_append(anyarray, anyelement)`	`anyarray`	append an element to the end of an array	`array_append(ARRAY[1,2], 3)`	`{1,2,3}`
`array_cat(anyarray, anyarray)`	`anyarray`	concatenate two arrays	`array_cat(ARRAY[1,2,3], ARRAY[4,5])`	`{1,2,3,4,5}`
`array_dims(anyarray)`	`text`	returns a text representation of array's dimensions	`array_dims(ARRAY[[1,2,3], [4,5,6]])`	`[1:2][1:3]`
`array_lower(anyarray, int)`	`int`	returns lower bound of the requested array dimension	`array_lower('[0:2]={1,2,3}'::int[], 1)`	`0`
`array_prepend(anyelement, anyarray)`	`anyarray`	append an element to the beginning of an array	`array_prepend(1, ARRAY[2,3])`	`{1,2,3}`
`array_to_string(anyarray, text)`	`text`	concatenates array elements using provided delimiter	`array_to_string(ARRAY[1, 2, 3], '~^~')`	`1~^~2~^~3`
`array_upper(anyarray, int)`	`int`	returns upper bound of the requested array dimension	`array_upper(ARRAY[1,2,3,4], 1)`	`4`
`string_to_array(text, text)`	`text[]`	splits string into array elements using provided delimiter	`string_to_array('xx~^~yy~^~zz', '~^~')`	`{xx,yy,zz}`

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User Comments

08 Apr 2009 16:28:13

When given an empty-string as input, as in array_to_string('',','), the result is null. Users desiring a non-null result must test for an empty-string and generate their desired output. There exists the possibility that this function may be altered to return either an empty array or an array with a single empty-string element in some future release.

Gurjeet Singh

08 Apr 2009 21:35:42

Following PLPGSQL function can be used to find an element's position in an array:

create or replace function find_array_element( el anyelement, arr anyarray ) returns integer as $$
declare
i int;
begin
for i in 1..array_upper( arr, 1 ) loop
if( el = arr[i] ) then
return i;
end if;
end loop;
return 0;
end;
$$ language plpgsql;

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