Re: json accessors

On 11/28/2012 08:16 PM, Hannu Krosing wrote:
> On 11/29/2012 02:07 AM, Hannu Krosing wrote:
>> On 11/29/2012 01:10 AM, Merlin Moncure wrote:
>>> On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 2:44 PM, Andrew Dunstan
>>> <andrew(at)dunslane(dot)net> wrote:
>> ...
>>>
>>>>> *) have you considered something like
>>>>> anyelement from_json(anyelement, json)
>>>>> or
>>>>> select <json>::some_type; (this may or many not be possible given
>>>>> our
>>>>> casting mechanics; i don't know).
>>>> I have no idea what the semantics of this would be.
>>> Yeah, there's a lot of nuance there.
>> One way to tackle it would give the argument element as a template
>> and the result will the same template filled in from json filled
>>
>> create table tab1(id serial primary key, ts timestamp default now(),
>> data text);
>>
>> insert into tab1 select from_json(row(null,null,null)::tab1,
>> '{"data":"the data"}');
>> insert into tab1 select from_json(row(null,null,null)::tab1,
>> '{"id":-1, "ts":null, "data":""}');
>> insert into tab1 select from_json(t.*,'{"data":"more data"}') from
>> tab1 t where id = -1;
>>
>> hannu=# select row_to_json(t.*) from tab1 t;
>> row_to_json
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>> {"id":1,"ts":"2012-11-29 02:01:48.379172","data":"the data"}
>> {"id":-1,"ts":null, "data":""}
>> {"id":2,"ts":"2012-11-29 02:02:34.600164","data":"more data"}
>> (3 rows)
>>
>> if extracting the defaults from table def proves too tricky for first
>> iteration, then
>> just set the missing fields to NULL or even better, carry over the
>> values from template;
> You could even do a template-less row_from_json which returns a
> records with all fields converted to
> the JSON-encodable types and hope that the next conversions will be
> done by postgreSQL as needed.
>
> insert into tab1 select row_from_json('{"id":100, "ts":"2012-12-21",
> "data":"End of Everything"}');
>
> insert into tab1
> select * from row_from_json(
> '[{"id":101, "ts":"2012-12-22", "data":"1st day after End of Everything"}
> {"id":102, "ts":"2012-12-22", "data":"2nd day after End of Everything"}
> ]');
>

The real problem here is that for any irregularly shaped json it's
likely to be a bust, and could only possibly work sanely for nested json
at all if the target type had corresponding array and composite fields.
hstore's populate_record works fairly well precisely because hstore is a
flat structure, unlike json.

In any case, I think this sort of suggestion highlights the possible
benefits of what I suggested upthread, namely to expose an API that will
allow easy construction of json transformation functions as extensions.

>>
>>
>> PS: good work so far :)
>>
>> Hannu
>>
>>

Thanks.

cheers

andrew