Re: [HACKERS] SQL procedures

Peter Eisentraut <peter(dot)eisentraut(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com> writes:
> On 11/8/17 09:54, Tom Lane wrote:
>> Do procedures of this ilk belong in pg_proc at all? It seems like a large
>> fraction of the attributes tracked in pg_proc are senseless for this
>> purpose. A new catalog might be a better approach.

> The common functionality between functions and procedures is like 98%
> [citation needed], so they definitely belong there, even more so than
> aggregates, for example.

No, I don't think so. The core reason why not is that in

SELECT foo(...) FROM ...

foo() might be either a plain function or an aggregate, so it's important
that functions and aggregates share the same namespace. *That* is why
they are in the same catalog. On the other hand, since the above syntax
is not usable to call a SQL procedure, putting SQL procedures into pg_proc
just creates namespacing conflicts. Do we really want the existence of
a function foo(int) to mean that you can't create a SQL procedure named
foo and taking one int argument?

regards, tom lane