Re: Procedural Languages

On 5/31/12 8:36 AM, John Townsend wrote:
> There are least 10 Procedural Languages
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PL/pgSQL> available for PostGreSQL. The
> one that comes with the installation is PL/pgSQL.
>
> Which ones do you use and why?

I've often wondered how these "external" languages perform, figuring
that using a native language would perform better.

If I'm executing say a PL/Perl procedure, once I've executed it the first
time, can I take it the interpreter is now resident withing the PG footprint?
Is it analogous to say Apache and mod_perl? The module/library has been loaded
and is now ready? Or is it more along the lines of the one single PL/perl
function is now cached, and any other function executed afterward will need to
be brought in but the cached procedure is now "in ram"? Or.. is the function
code just passed off to the system in a new process? I.e.. how do these hooks work?

Thanks,

-ds