This section describes functions that possibly return more than one row. The most widely used functions in this class are series generating functions, as detailed in Table 9.67 and Table 9.68. Other, more specialized set-returning functions are described elsewhere in this manual. See Section 7.2.1.4 for ways to combine multiple set-returning functions.
Table 9.67. Series Generating Functions
Function
Description
generate_series
( start
integer
, stop
integer
[, step
integer
] ) → setof integer
generate_series
( start
bigint
, stop
bigint
[, step
bigint
] ) → setof bigint
generate_series
( start
numeric
, stop
numeric
[, step
numeric
] ) → setof numeric
Generates a series of values from start
to stop
, with a step size of step
. step
defaults to 1.
generate_series
( start
timestamp
, stop
timestamp
, step
interval
) → setof timestamp
generate_series
( start
timestamp with time zone
, stop
timestamp with time zone
, step
interval
[, timezone
text
] ) → setof timestamp with time zone
Generates a series of values from start
to stop
, with a step size of step
. In the timezone-aware form, times of day and daylight-savings adjustments are computed according to the time zone named by the timezone
argument, or the current TimeZone setting if that is omitted.
When step
is positive, zero rows are returned if start
is greater than stop
. Conversely, when step
is negative, zero rows are returned if start
is less than stop
. Zero rows are also returned if any input is NULL
. It is an error for step
to be zero. Some examples follow:
SELECT * FROM generate_series(2,4); generate_series ----------------- 2 3 4 (3 rows) SELECT * FROM generate_series(5,1,-2); generate_series ----------------- 5 3 1 (3 rows) SELECT * FROM generate_series(4,3); generate_series ----------------- (0 rows) SELECT generate_series(1.1, 4, 1.3); generate_series ----------------- 1.1 2.4 3.7 (3 rows) -- this example relies on the date-plus-integer operator: SELECT current_date + s.a AS dates FROM generate_series(0,14,7) AS s(a); dates ------------ 2004-02-05 2004-02-12 2004-02-19 (3 rows) SELECT * FROM generate_series('2008-03-01 00:00'::timestamp, '2008-03-04 12:00', '10 hours'); generate_series --------------------- 2008-03-01 00:00:00 2008-03-01 10:00:00 2008-03-01 20:00:00 2008-03-02 06:00:00 2008-03-02 16:00:00 2008-03-03 02:00:00 2008-03-03 12:00:00 2008-03-03 22:00:00 2008-03-04 08:00:00 (9 rows) -- this example assumes that TimeZone is set to UTC; note the DST transition: SELECT * FROM generate_series('2001-10-22 00:00 -04:00'::timestamptz, '2001-11-01 00:00 -05:00'::timestamptz, '1 day'::interval, 'America/New_York'); generate_series ------------------------ 2001-10-22 04:00:00+00 2001-10-23 04:00:00+00 2001-10-24 04:00:00+00 2001-10-25 04:00:00+00 2001-10-26 04:00:00+00 2001-10-27 04:00:00+00 2001-10-28 04:00:00+00 2001-10-29 05:00:00+00 2001-10-30 05:00:00+00 2001-10-31 05:00:00+00 2001-11-01 05:00:00+00 (11 rows)
Table 9.68. Subscript Generating Functions
Function
Description
generate_subscripts
( array
anyarray
, dim
integer
) → setof integer
Generates a series comprising the valid subscripts of the dim
'th dimension of the given array.
generate_subscripts
( array
anyarray
, dim
integer
, reverse
boolean
) → setof integer
Generates a series comprising the valid subscripts of the dim
'th dimension of the given array. When reverse
is true, returns the series in reverse order.
generate_subscripts
is a convenience function that generates the set of valid subscripts for the specified dimension of the given array. Zero rows are returned for arrays that do not have the requested dimension, or if any input is NULL
. Some examples follow:
-- basic usage: SELECT generate_subscripts('{NULL,1,NULL,2}'::int[], 1) AS s; s --- 1 2 3 4 (4 rows) -- presenting an array, the subscript and the subscripted -- value requires a subquery: SELECT * FROM arrays; a -------------------- {-1,-2} {100,200,300} (2 rows) SELECT a AS array, s AS subscript, a[s] AS value FROM (SELECT generate_subscripts(a, 1) AS s, a FROM arrays) foo; array | subscript | value ---------------+-----------+------- {-1,-2} | 1 | -1 {-1,-2} | 2 | -2 {100,200,300} | 1 | 100 {100,200,300} | 2 | 200 {100,200,300} | 3 | 300 (5 rows) -- unnest a 2D array: CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION unnest2(anyarray) RETURNS SETOF anyelement AS $$ select $1[i][j] from generate_subscripts($1,1) g1(i), generate_subscripts($1,2) g2(j); $$ LANGUAGE sql IMMUTABLE; CREATE FUNCTION SELECT * FROM unnest2(ARRAY[[1,2],[3,4]]); unnest2 --------- 1 2 3 4 (4 rows)
When a function in the FROM
clause is suffixed by WITH ORDINALITY
, a bigint
column is appended to the function's output column(s), which starts from 1 and increments by 1 for each row of the function's output. This is most useful in the case of set returning functions such as unnest()
.
-- set returning function WITH ORDINALITY: SELECT * FROM pg_ls_dir('.') WITH ORDINALITY AS t(ls,n); ls | n -----------------+---- pg_serial | 1 pg_twophase | 2 postmaster.opts | 3 pg_notify | 4 postgresql.conf | 5 pg_tblspc | 6 logfile | 7 base | 8 postmaster.pid | 9 pg_ident.conf | 10 global | 11 pg_xact | 12 pg_snapshots | 13 pg_multixact | 14 PG_VERSION | 15 pg_wal | 16 pg_hba.conf | 17 pg_stat_tmp | 18 pg_subtrans | 19 (19 rows)
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