Re: Function returns composite type

Teodor Sigaev wrote:
> it's a great pity :(.
>
> But in function I already make TupleDesc:
> tupdesc = CreateTemplateTupleDesc(attnum, false);
> for (i = 0; i < attnum; i++) {
> sprintf(attname, "z%d", i+1);
> TupleDescInitEntry(tupdesc, i+1, attname, INT4OID, -1,
> 0, false);
> }
> As I understand, this code makes full description of returning value,
> including types and column's names.
> Is this info used anywhere?

You could actually get the tupdesc from the caller if you wanted. See,
for example crosstab_hash() in contrib/tablefunc:

<snip>
/* check to see if caller supports us returning a tuplestore */
if (!rsinfo || !(rsinfo->allowedModes & SFRM_Materialize))
elog(ERROR, "crosstab: materialize mode required, but it is not "
"allowed in this context");

per_query_ctx = rsinfo->econtext->ecxt_per_query_memory;
oldcontext = MemoryContextSwitchTo(per_query_ctx);

/* get the requested return tuple description */
tupdesc = CreateTupleDescCopy(rsinfo->expectedDesc);
</snip>

The problem is that the parser needs the column data types long before
your function gets called by the executor. Therefore you either need the
predetermined return type, or the query string definition.

We've discussed a couple of times allowing the parser to "interrogate"
the function at parse time to let it determine what the runtime tupdesc
will be, but I haven't been able to come up with a good way to do that.

Joe