Re: plperl (7.5)

Alvaro Herrera <alvherre(at)dcc(dot)uchile(dot)cl> writes:
> On Sat, Jul 10, 2004 at 09:18:28PM -0700, elein wrote:
>> The new plperl returns sets by having
>> the function return an array.

> I think RETURN NEXT does the same thing anyway ... they just store
> tuples in a Tuplestore and then the whole thing is returned. So the
> function actually doesn't return until the whole function is done.

However, it's likely that the tuplestore infrastructure can deal
comfortably with sets far larger than a Perl array can. (For one thing,
it will swap tuples out to a temp file on disk once the set size exceeds
work_mem.) I think elein's concern is justified, unless someone can
produce a test case showing that plperl actually performs OK with a
large result set.

As a simple test for plpgsql's speed with such things, I tried

create function seq(int) returns setof int as '
begin
for i in 1..$1 loop
return next i;
end loop;
return;
end' language plpgsql;

regression=# \timing
Timing is on.
regression=# select count(*) from seq(100000);
count
--------
100000
(1 row)

Time: 396.524 ms
regression=# select count(*) from seq(1000000);
count
---------
1000000
(1 row)

Time: 3615.115 ms
regression=# select count(*) from seq(10000000);
count
----------
10000000
(1 row)

Time: 40356.972 ms

My Perl is too rusty to immediately whip out the equivalent incantation
in plperl; would someone like to compare the timings on their own machine?

regards, tom lane