Re: My second PL/pgSQL function - minor problem

On 2009-11-18, Thomas Løcke <thomas(dot)granvej6(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
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> Hey all,
>
> http://pastebin.com/f1015226d
>
> The above function appears to be doing exactly what I want: Fetch the users
> data and update the visits column, if the supplied credentials match a user.
>
> My problem is what happens when the credentials don't match a user. In those
> cases I would like to have a boolean false returned, but instead I get an
> empty array - which of course is entirely according to the functions "RETURN
> SETOF users" statement.
>
> Is this little problem solvable, or will I have to learn to live with the
> empty array?

array? how are you calling it?

your function seems basically equivalent to

UPDATE users SET lastvisit = now(), visits = visits + 1
WHERE username = uname AND password = passwd
RETURNING id;

anyway you'll have to look at the number of results returned, or
re-write it to only return a single result (I'm assumuing you don't
allow multiple accounts with the same username and password)
then you can return a special value for not found (perhaps 0)

personally I'd go with the sql given above and use apropriate means to
ask how many results were returned.

pg_num_rows(), FOUND, etc...

OTOH you say array, perhaps your chosen platform already treats an
array with zero elemants like false?