Re: Problem inserting composite type values

Stephan Szabo wrote:
> On Fri, 1 Dec 2006, Chris Dunworth wrote:
>
>
>> Hi all --
>>
>> (huge apologies if this is a duplicate post -- I sent from an
>> unsubscribed email account before...)
>>
>> I have a problem trying to INSERT INTO a table by selecting from a
>> function that returns a composite type. (I'm running version 8.1.4, FYI)
>>
>> Basically, I have two tables. I want to retrieve rows from one table and
>> store them into the other. The schema of the two tables is not the same,
>> so I use a conversion function (written in plperl) that takes a row from
>> the start table and returns a row from the end table. However, I can't
>> get the insert working.
>>
>> Here's a simplified example of my real system (must have plperl
>> installed to try it):
>>
>> ---------------------------------------
>> -- Read rows from here...
>> CREATE TABLE startTable ( intVal integer, textVal text );
>>
>> -- ...and store as rows in here
>> CREATE TABLE endTable ( intVal integer, newVal1 integer, newVal2 integer);
>>
>> -- Some test data for the startTable
>> INSERT INTO startTable VALUES ( 1, '10:11');
>> INSERT INTO startTable VALUES ( 2, '20:25');
>> INSERT INTO startTable VALUES ( 3, '30:38');
>>
>> -- Note: Takes composite type as argument, and returns composite type.
>> -- This just converts a row of startTable into a row of endTable, splitting
>> -- the colon-delimited integers from textVal into separate integers.
>> CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION convertStartToEnd(startTable) RETURNS
>> endTable AS $$
>> my ($startTable) = @_;
>> my @newVals = split(/:/, $startTable->{"textval"});
>> my $result = { "intval"=>$startTable->{"intval"},
>> "newval1"=>@newVals[0], "newval2"=>@newVals[1] };
>> return $result;
>> $$ LANGUAGE plperl;
>> ---------------------------------------
>>
>> Now, if I run the following SELECT, I get the results below it:
>>
>> SELECT convertStartToEnd(st.*) FROM startTable st;
>>
>> convertstarttoend
>> -------------------
>> (1,10,11)
>> (2,20,25)
>> (3,30,38)
>> (3 rows)
>>
>> This seems OK. But when I try to INSERT the results of this select into
>> the endTable, I get this error:
>>
>> INSERT INTO endTable SELECT convertStartToEnd(st.*) FROM startTable st;
>>
>
>
> I think you'd need something like
> INSERT INTO endTable SELECT (convertStartToEnd(st.*)).* FROM startTable
> st;
> to make it break up the type into its components.
>
>

Yes! That was exactly it. I thought it might have been something simple.

Thanks, Stephan!

-Chris