Re: PL/pgSQL 2

On Mon, Sep 1, 2014 at 11:12 PM, Craig Ringer <craig(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com> wrote:

> On 09/02/2014 09:40 AM, David G Johnston wrote:
> > Random thought as I wrote that: how about considering how pl/pgsql
> > functionality can be generalize so that it is a database API that
> > another language can call? In that way the server would drive the core
> > functionality and the language would simply be an interpreter that
> > enforces its specific notion of acceptable syntax.
>
> That's pretty much what we already have with the SPI and procedural
> language handler infrastructure. PL/Perl, PL/Python, etc exist because
> we have this.
>
> What do you see as missing from the current infrastructure? What can't
> be done that should be able to be done in those languages?
>
>
​Yet pl/pgsql does not have to use SPI-interface type calls to interact
with PostgreSQL at the SQL level...

​I don't have an answer to your questions but the one I'm asking is whether
a particular language could hide all of the SPI stuff behind some custom
syntax so that it in effect looks similar to what pl/pgsql does today? Or,
more to the point, does pl/pgsql use the same SPI interface behind the
scenes as PL/Perl or does it have its own special interface?

David J.