Hi Rob,

Think I can answer this one, but I count myself as a novice so I don't guarantee there's no mistakes here.
Firstly you need to use EXECUTE 'SELECT', secondly you need to return the set, e.g. from one of mine

	CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION getunassigned(state integer)
  	RETURNS SETOF macaddr AS
	$BODY
	$DECLARE
		i record;
		myvalue macaddr%rowtype;

	$BEGIN
       		FOR i in EXECUTE 'SELECT mac FROM handsets WHERE state=$1' LOOP
			RETURN NEXT myvalue;
		END LOOP;
		RETURN;

	END;$BODY$
  	LANGUAGE 'plpgsql' VOLATILE;

I'm not sure what $1 is referring to so I don't know how to quote that, and I'm assuming maccaddr is a rowtype but perhaps you've defined it as something else. Here's one of mine that I know works. return_expanded_fields_for_func is a user-defined rowtype.

CREATE FUNCTION add_collocation(mywords text, myhos text, mysem text) RETURNS SETOF return_expanded_fields_for_func AS $$

DECLARE

      tmpsem text = mysem;
    tmpwords text = mywords;
      ret return_expanded_fields_for_func%rowtype;

    BEGIN
       --escape quotes
         tmpsem = regexp_replace(tmpsem, '\'', '\\\'', 'g');
        tmpwords = regexp_replace(tmpwords, '\'', '\\\'', 'g');

        --this function adds to tables
        EXECUTE 'SELECT * FROM add_entry (\'collocations\', \'' || tmpwords || '\', \'' || myhos || '\', \'\', \'' || tmpsem || '\', \'\', \'\', \'\', \'\', \'\')';
        --now output what we've done, using fields from a view on those tables
        EXECUTE 'CREATE TEMP TABLE pron_tmp AS SELECT * FROM show_all_fields_expanded_refs WHERE headword = \'' || tmpwords || '\'';

        FOR ret IN EXECUTE 'SELECT * FROM pron_tmp ORDER BY ho, vo' LOOP
                RETURN NEXT ret;
        END LOOP;

DROP TABLE pron_tmp;

RETURN;

    END;
    $$
    LANGUAGE plpgsql;

HTH,
Sue Fitt
Rob Shepherd wrote:

Dear PG users,

I'm attempting to create a stored procedure which returns a result set
from the handset table to the caller.

This stored proc will eventually be called by JDBC application. I'm
using pgadmin to write and test.

No luck so far. Here's what I have......

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION getunassigned(state integer)
  RETURNS SETOF macaddr AS
$BODY$BEGIN
        SELECT mac FROM handsets WHERE state=$1;
END;$BODY$
  LANGUAGE 'plpgsql' VOLATILE;
ALTER FUNCTION getunassigned(state integer) OWNER TO "IPTHSACC";

when calling it via the query tool....
IPTHsAcc=> SELECT * FROM getunassigned(1);

I get an error thus....
ERROR:  SELECT query has no destination for result data
HINT:  If you want to discard the results, use PERFORM instead.
CONTEXT:  PL/pgSQL function "getunassigned" line 2 at SQL statement

Please could somebody show me a simple example of a stored proc/func
which returns a set.

my table is....

CREATE TABLE handsets (
    mac macaddr NOT NULL,
    state smallint DEFAULT 0 NOT NULL
);


many thanks for any pointers.

Rob


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