PL/Perl Perl PL/Perl is a loadable procedural language that enables you to write PostgreSQL functions and procedures in the Perl programming language. The main advantage to using PL/Perl is that this allows use, within stored functions and procedures, of the manyfold string munging operators and functions available for Perl. Parsing complex strings might be easier using Perl than it is with the string functions and control structures provided in PL/pgSQL. To install PL/Perl in a particular database, use CREATE EXTENSION plperl. If a language is installed into template1, all subsequently created databases will have the language installed automatically. Users of source packages must specially enable the build of PL/Perl during the installation process. (Refer to for more information.) Users of binary packages might find PL/Perl in a separate subpackage. To create a function in the PL/Perl language, use the standard syntax: CREATE FUNCTION funcname (argument-types) RETURNS return-type -- function attributes can go here AS $$ # PL/Perl function body goes here $$ LANGUAGE plperl; The body of the function is ordinary Perl code. In fact, the PL/Perl glue code wraps it inside a Perl subroutine. A PL/Perl function is called in a scalar context, so it can't return a list. You can return non-scalar values (arrays, records, and sets) by returning a reference, as discussed below. In a PL/Perl procedure, any return value from the Perl code is ignored. PL/Perl also supports anonymous code blocks called with the statement: DO $$ # PL/Perl code $$ LANGUAGE plperl; An anonymous code block receives no arguments, and whatever value it might return is discarded. Otherwise it behaves just like a function. The use of named nested subroutines is dangerous in Perl, especially if they refer to lexical variables in the enclosing scope. Because a PL/Perl function is wrapped in a subroutine, any named subroutine you place inside one will be nested. In general, it is far safer to create anonymous subroutines which you call via a coderef. For more information, see the entries for Variable "%s" will not stay shared and Variable "%s" is not available in the perldiag man page, or search the Internet for perl nested named subroutine. The syntax of the CREATE FUNCTION command requires the function body to be written as a string constant. It is usually most convenient to use dollar quoting (see ) for the string constant. If you choose to use escape string syntax E'', you must double any single quote marks (') and backslashes (\) used in the body of the function (see ). Arguments and results are handled as in any other Perl subroutine: arguments are passed in @_, and a result value is returned with return or as the last expression evaluated in the function. For example, a function returning the greater of two integer values could be defined as: CREATE FUNCTION perl_max (integer, integer) RETURNS integer AS $$ if ($_[0] > $_[1]) { return $_[0]; } return $_[1]; $$ LANGUAGE plperl; Arguments will be converted from the database's encoding to UTF-8 for use inside PL/Perl, and then converted from UTF-8 back to the database encoding upon return. If an SQL null valuenull valuein PL/Perl is passed to a function, the argument value will appear as undefined in Perl. The above function definition will not behave very nicely with null inputs (in fact, it will act as though they are zeroes). We could add STRICT to the function definition to make PostgreSQL do something more reasonable: if a null value is passed, the function will not be called at all, but will just return a null result automatically. Alternatively, we could check for undefined inputs in the function body. For example, suppose that we wanted perl_max with one null and one nonnull argument to return the nonnull argument, rather than a null value: CREATE FUNCTION perl_max (integer, integer) RETURNS integer AS $$ my ($x, $y) = @_; if (not defined $x) { return undef if not defined $y; return $y; } return $x if not defined $y; return $x if $x > $y; return $y; $$ LANGUAGE plperl; As shown above, to return an SQL null value from a PL/Perl function, return an undefined value. This can be done whether the function is strict or not. Anything in a function argument that is not a reference is a string, which is in the standard PostgreSQL external text representation for the relevant data type. In the case of ordinary numeric or text types, Perl will just do the right thing and the programmer will normally not have to worry about it. However, in other cases the argument will need to be converted into a form that is more usable in Perl. For example, the decode_bytea function can be used to convert an argument of type bytea into unescaped binary. Similarly, values passed back to PostgreSQL must be in the external text representation format. For example, the encode_bytea function can be used to escape binary data for a return value of type bytea. One case that is particularly important is boolean values. As just stated, the default behavior for bool values is that they are passed to Perl as text, thus either 't' or 'f'. This is problematic, since Perl will not treat 'f' as false! It is possible to improve matters by using a transform (see ). Suitable transforms are provided by the bool_plperl extension. To use it, install the extension: CREATE EXTENSION bool_plperl; -- or bool_plperlu for PL/PerlU Then use the TRANSFORM function attribute for a PL/Perl function that takes or returns bool, for example: CREATE FUNCTION perl_and(bool, bool) RETURNS bool TRANSFORM FOR TYPE bool AS $$ my ($a, $b) = @_; return $a && $b; $$ LANGUAGE plperl; When this transform is applied, bool arguments will be seen by Perl as being 1 or empty, thus properly true or false. If the function result is type bool, it will be true or false according to whether Perl would evaluate the returned value as true. Similar transformations are also performed for boolean query arguments and results of SPI queries performed inside the function (). Perl can return PostgreSQL arrays as references to Perl arrays. Here is an example: CREATE OR REPLACE function returns_array() RETURNS text[][] AS $$ return [['a"b','c,d'],['e\\f','g']]; $$ LANGUAGE plperl; select returns_array(); Perl passes PostgreSQL arrays as a blessed PostgreSQL::InServer::ARRAY object. This object may be treated as an array reference or a string, allowing for backward compatibility with Perl code written for PostgreSQL versions below 9.1 to run. For example: CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION concat_array_elements(text[]) RETURNS TEXT AS $$ my $arg = shift; my $result = ""; return undef if (!defined $arg); # as an array reference for (@$arg) { $result .= $_; } # also works as a string $result .= $arg; return $result; $$ LANGUAGE plperl; SELECT concat_array_elements(ARRAY['PL','/','Perl']); Multidimensional arrays are represented as references to lower-dimensional arrays of references in a way common to every Perl programmer. Composite-type arguments are passed to the function as references to hashes. The keys of the hash are the attribute names of the composite type. Here is an example: CREATE TABLE employee ( name text, basesalary integer, bonus integer ); CREATE FUNCTION empcomp(employee) RETURNS integer AS $$ my ($emp) = @_; return $emp->{basesalary} + $emp->{bonus}; $$ LANGUAGE plperl; SELECT name, empcomp(employee.*) FROM employee; A PL/Perl function can return a composite-type result using the same approach: return a reference to a hash that has the required attributes. For example: CREATE TYPE testrowperl AS (f1 integer, f2 text, f3 text); CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION perl_row() RETURNS testrowperl AS $$ return {f2 => 'hello', f1 => 1, f3 => 'world'}; $$ LANGUAGE plperl; SELECT * FROM perl_row(); Any columns in the declared result data type that are not present in the hash will be returned as null values. Similarly, output arguments of procedures can be returned as a hash reference: CREATE PROCEDURE perl_triple(INOUT a integer, INOUT b integer) AS $$ my ($a, $b) = @_; return {a => $a * 3, b => $b * 3}; $$ LANGUAGE plperl; CALL perl_triple(5, 10); PL/Perl functions can also return sets of either scalar or composite types. Usually you'll want to return rows one at a time, both to speed up startup time and to keep from queuing up the entire result set in memory. You can do this with return_next as illustrated below. Note that after the last return_next, you must put either return or (better) return undef. CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION perl_set_int(int) RETURNS SETOF INTEGER AS $$ foreach (0..$_[0]) { return_next($_); } return undef; $$ LANGUAGE plperl; SELECT * FROM perl_set_int(5); CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION perl_set() RETURNS SETOF testrowperl AS $$ return_next({ f1 => 1, f2 => 'Hello', f3 => 'World' }); return_next({ f1 => 2, f2 => 'Hello', f3 => 'PostgreSQL' }); return_next({ f1 => 3, f2 => 'Hello', f3 => 'PL/Perl' }); return undef; $$ LANGUAGE plperl; For small result sets, you can return a reference to an array that contains either scalars, references to arrays, or references to hashes for simple types, array types, and composite types, respectively. Here are some simple examples of returning the entire result set as an array reference: CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION perl_set_int(int) RETURNS SETOF INTEGER AS $$ return [0..$_[0]]; $$ LANGUAGE plperl; SELECT * FROM perl_set_int(5); CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION perl_set() RETURNS SETOF testrowperl AS $$ return [ { f1 => 1, f2 => 'Hello', f3 => 'World' }, { f1 => 2, f2 => 'Hello', f3 => 'PostgreSQL' }, { f1 => 3, f2 => 'Hello', f3 => 'PL/Perl' } ]; $$ LANGUAGE plperl; SELECT * FROM perl_set(); If you wish to use the strict pragma with your code you have a few options. For temporary global use you can SET plperl.use_strict to true. This will affect subsequent compilations of PL/Perl functions, but not functions already compiled in the current session. For permanent global use you can set plperl.use_strict to true in the postgresql.conf file. For permanent use in specific functions you can simply put: use strict; at the top of the function body. The feature pragma is also available to use if your Perl is version 5.10.0 or higher. The argument values supplied to a PL/Perl function's code are simply the input arguments converted to text form (just as if they had been displayed by a SELECT statement). Conversely, the return and return_next commands will accept any string that is acceptable input format for the function's declared return type. If this behavior is inconvenient for a particular case, it can be improved by using a transform, as already illustrated for bool values. Several examples of transform modules are included in the PostgreSQL distribution. Access to the database itself from your Perl function can be done via the following functions: spi_exec_query(query [, max-rows]) spi_exec_query in PL/Perl spi_exec_query executes an SQL command and returns the entire row set as a reference to an array of hash references. You should only use this command when you know that the result set will be relatively small. Here is an example of a query (SELECT command) with the optional maximum number of rows: $rv = spi_exec_query('SELECT * FROM my_table', 5); This returns up to 5 rows from the table my_table. If my_table has a column my_column, you can get that value from row $i of the result like this: $foo = $rv->{rows}[$i]->{my_column}; The total number of rows returned from a SELECT query can be accessed like this: $nrows = $rv->{processed} Here is an example using a different command type: $query = "INSERT INTO my_table VALUES (1, 'test')"; $rv = spi_exec_query($query); You can then access the command status (e.g., SPI_OK_INSERT) like this: $res = $rv->{status}; To get the number of rows affected, do: $nrows = $rv->{processed}; Here is a complete example: CREATE TABLE test ( i int, v varchar ); INSERT INTO test (i, v) VALUES (1, 'first line'); INSERT INTO test (i, v) VALUES (2, 'second line'); INSERT INTO test (i, v) VALUES (3, 'third line'); INSERT INTO test (i, v) VALUES (4, 'immortal'); CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION test_munge() RETURNS SETOF test AS $$ my $rv = spi_exec_query('select i, v from test;'); my $status = $rv->{status}; my $nrows = $rv->{processed}; foreach my $rn (0 .. $nrows - 1) { my $row = $rv->{rows}[$rn]; $row->{i} += 200 if defined($row->{i}); $row->{v} =~ tr/A-Za-z/a-zA-Z/ if (defined($row->{v})); return_next($row); } return undef; $$ LANGUAGE plperl; SELECT * FROM test_munge(); spi_query(command) spi_query in PL/Perl spi_fetchrow(cursor) spi_fetchrow in PL/Perl spi_cursor_close(cursor) spi_cursor_close in PL/Perl spi_query and spi_fetchrow work together as a pair for row sets which might be large, or for cases where you wish to return rows as they arrive. spi_fetchrow works only with spi_query. The following example illustrates how you use them together: CREATE TYPE foo_type AS (the_num INTEGER, the_text TEXT); CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION lotsa_md5 (INTEGER) RETURNS SETOF foo_type AS $$ use Digest::MD5 qw(md5_hex); my $file = '/usr/share/dict/words'; my $t = localtime; elog(NOTICE, "opening file $file at $t" ); open my $fh, '<', $file # ooh, it's a file access! or elog(ERROR, "cannot open $file for reading: $!"); my @words = <$fh>; close $fh; $t = localtime; elog(NOTICE, "closed file $file at $t"); chomp(@words); my $row; my $sth = spi_query("SELECT * FROM generate_series(1,$_[0]) AS b(a)"); while (defined ($row = spi_fetchrow($sth))) { return_next({ the_num => $row->{a}, the_text => md5_hex($words[rand @words]) }); } return; $$ LANGUAGE plperlu; SELECT * from lotsa_md5(500); Normally, spi_fetchrow should be repeated until it returns undef, indicating that there are no more rows to read. The cursor returned by spi_query is automatically freed when spi_fetchrow returns undef. If you do not wish to read all the rows, instead call spi_cursor_close to free the cursor. Failure to do so will result in memory leaks. spi_prepare(command, argument types) spi_prepare in PL/Perl spi_query_prepared(plan, arguments) spi_query_prepared in PL/Perl spi_exec_prepared(plan [, attributes], arguments) spi_exec_prepared in PL/Perl spi_freeplan(plan) spi_freeplan in PL/Perl spi_prepare, spi_query_prepared, spi_exec_prepared, and spi_freeplan implement the same functionality but for prepared queries. spi_prepare accepts a query string with numbered argument placeholders ($1, $2, etc) and a string list of argument types: $plan = spi_prepare('SELECT * FROM test WHERE id > $1 AND name = $2', 'INTEGER', 'TEXT'); Once a query plan is prepared by a call to spi_prepare, the plan can be used instead of the string query, either in spi_exec_prepared, where the result is the same as returned by spi_exec_query, or in spi_query_prepared which returns a cursor exactly as spi_query does, which can be later passed to spi_fetchrow. The optional second parameter to spi_exec_prepared is a hash reference of attributes; the only attribute currently supported is limit, which sets the maximum number of rows returned by a query. The advantage of prepared queries is that is it possible to use one prepared plan for more than one query execution. After the plan is not needed anymore, it can be freed with spi_freeplan: CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION init() RETURNS VOID AS $$ $_SHARED{my_plan} = spi_prepare('SELECT (now() + $1)::date AS now', 'INTERVAL'); $$ LANGUAGE plperl; CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION add_time( INTERVAL ) RETURNS TEXT AS $$ return spi_exec_prepared( $_SHARED{my_plan}, $_[0] )->{rows}->[0]->{now}; $$ LANGUAGE plperl; CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION done() RETURNS VOID AS $$ spi_freeplan( $_SHARED{my_plan}); undef $_SHARED{my_plan}; $$ LANGUAGE plperl; SELECT init(); SELECT add_time('1 day'), add_time('2 days'), add_time('3 days'); SELECT done(); add_time | add_time | add_time ------------+------------+------------ 2005-12-10 | 2005-12-11 | 2005-12-12 Note that the parameter subscript in spi_prepare is defined via $1, $2, $3, etc, so avoid declaring query strings in double quotes that might easily lead to hard-to-catch bugs. Another example illustrates usage of an optional parameter in spi_exec_prepared: CREATE TABLE hosts AS SELECT id, ('192.168.1.'||id)::inet AS address FROM generate_series(1,3) AS id; CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION init_hosts_query() RETURNS VOID AS $$ $_SHARED{plan} = spi_prepare('SELECT * FROM hosts WHERE address << $1', 'inet'); $$ LANGUAGE plperl; CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION query_hosts(inet) RETURNS SETOF hosts AS $$ return spi_exec_prepared( $_SHARED{plan}, {limit => 2}, $_[0] )->{rows}; $$ LANGUAGE plperl; CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION release_hosts_query() RETURNS VOID AS $$ spi_freeplan($_SHARED{plan}); undef $_SHARED{plan}; $$ LANGUAGE plperl; SELECT init_hosts_query(); SELECT query_hosts('192.168.1.0/30'); SELECT release_hosts_query(); query_hosts ----------------- (1,192.168.1.1) (2,192.168.1.2) (2 rows) spi_commit() spi_commit in PL/Perl spi_rollback() spi_rollback in PL/Perl Commit or roll back the current transaction. This can only be called in a procedure or anonymous code block (DO command) called from the top level. (Note that it is not possible to run the SQL commands COMMIT or ROLLBACK via spi_exec_query or similar. It has to be done using these functions.) After a transaction is ended, a new transaction is automatically started, so there is no separate function for that. Here is an example: CREATE PROCEDURE transaction_test1() LANGUAGE plperl AS $$ foreach my $i (0..9) { spi_exec_query("INSERT INTO test1 (a) VALUES ($i)"); if ($i % 2 == 0) { spi_commit(); } else { spi_rollback(); } } $$; CALL transaction_test1(); elog(level, msg) elog in PL/Perl Emit a log or error message. Possible levels are DEBUG, LOG, INFO, NOTICE, WARNING, and ERROR. ERROR raises an error condition; if this is not trapped by the surrounding Perl code, the error propagates out to the calling query, causing the current transaction or subtransaction to be aborted. This is effectively the same as the Perl die command. The other levels only generate messages of different priority levels. Whether messages of a particular priority are reported to the client, written to the server log, or both is controlled by the and configuration variables. See for more information. quote_literal(string) quote_literal in PL/Perl Return the given string suitably quoted to be used as a string literal in an SQL statement string. Embedded single-quotes and backslashes are properly doubled. Note that quote_literal returns undef on undef input; if the argument might be undef, quote_nullable is often more suitable. quote_nullable(string) quote_nullable in PL/Perl Return the given string suitably quoted to be used as a string literal in an SQL statement string; or, if the argument is undef, return the unquoted string "NULL". Embedded single-quotes and backslashes are properly doubled. quote_ident(string) quote_ident in PL/Perl Return the given string suitably quoted to be used as an identifier in an SQL statement string. Quotes are added only if necessary (i.e., if the string contains non-identifier characters or would be case-folded). Embedded quotes are properly doubled. decode_bytea(string) decode_bytea in PL/Perl Return the unescaped binary data represented by the contents of the given string, which should be bytea encoded. encode_bytea(string) encode_bytea in PL/Perl Return the bytea encoded form of the binary data contents of the given string. encode_array_literal(array) encode_array_literal in PL/Perl encode_array_literal(array, delimiter) Returns the contents of the referenced array as a string in array literal format (see ). Returns the argument value unaltered if it's not a reference to an array. The delimiter used between elements of the array literal defaults to ", " if a delimiter is not specified or is undef. encode_typed_literal(value, typename) encode_typed_literal in PL/Perl Converts a Perl variable to the value of the data type passed as a second argument and returns a string representation of this value. Correctly handles nested arrays and values of composite types. encode_array_constructor(array) encode_array_constructor in PL/Perl Returns the contents of the referenced array as a string in array constructor format (see ). Individual values are quoted using quote_nullable. Returns the argument value, quoted using quote_nullable, if it's not a reference to an array. looks_like_number(string) looks_like_number in PL/Perl Returns a true value if the content of the given string looks like a number, according to Perl, returns false otherwise. Returns undef if the argument is undef. Leading and trailing space is ignored. Inf and Infinity are regarded as numbers. is_array_ref(argument) is_array_ref in PL/Perl Returns a true value if the given argument may be treated as an array reference, that is, if ref of the argument is ARRAY or PostgreSQL::InServer::ARRAY. Returns false otherwise. You can use the global hash %_SHARED to store data, including code references, between function calls for the lifetime of the current session. Here is a simple example for shared data: CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION set_var(name text, val text) RETURNS text AS $$ if ($_SHARED{$_[0]} = $_[1]) { return 'ok'; } else { return "cannot set shared variable $_[0] to $_[1]"; } $$ LANGUAGE plperl; CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION get_var(name text) RETURNS text AS $$ return $_SHARED{$_[0]}; $$ LANGUAGE plperl; SELECT set_var('sample', 'Hello, PL/Perl! How''s tricks?'); SELECT get_var('sample'); Here is a slightly more complicated example using a code reference: CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION myfuncs() RETURNS void AS $$ $_SHARED{myquote} = sub { my $arg = shift; $arg =~ s/(['\\])/\\$1/g; return "'$arg'"; }; $$ LANGUAGE plperl; SELECT myfuncs(); /* initializes the function */ /* Set up a function that uses the quote function */ CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION use_quote(TEXT) RETURNS text AS $$ my $text_to_quote = shift; my $qfunc = $_SHARED{myquote}; return &$qfunc($text_to_quote); $$ LANGUAGE plperl; (You could have replaced the above with the one-liner return $_SHARED{myquote}->($_[0]); at the expense of readability.) For security reasons, PL/Perl executes functions called by any one SQL role in a separate Perl interpreter for that role. This prevents accidental or malicious interference by one user with the behavior of another user's PL/Perl functions. Each such interpreter has its own value of the %_SHARED variable and other global state. Thus, two PL/Perl functions will share the same value of %_SHARED if and only if they are executed by the same SQL role. In an application wherein a single session executes code under multiple SQL roles (via SECURITY DEFINER functions, use of SET ROLE, etc) you may need to take explicit steps to ensure that PL/Perl functions can share data via %_SHARED. To do that, make sure that functions that should communicate are owned by the same user, and mark them SECURITY DEFINER. You must of course take care that such functions can't be used to do anything unintended. trusted PL/Perl Normally, PL/Perl is installed as a trusted programming language named plperl. In this setup, certain Perl operations are disabled to preserve security. In general, the operations that are restricted are those that interact with the environment. This includes file handle operations, require, and use (for external modules). There is no way to access internals of the database server process or to gain OS-level access with the permissions of the server process, as a C function can do. Thus, any unprivileged database user can be permitted to use this language. Here is an example of a function that will not work because file system operations are not allowed for security reasons: CREATE FUNCTION badfunc() RETURNS integer AS $$ my $tmpfile = "/tmp/badfile"; open my $fh, '>', $tmpfile or elog(ERROR, qq{could not open the file "$tmpfile": $!}); print $fh "Testing writing to a file\n"; close $fh or elog(ERROR, qq{could not close the file "$tmpfile": $!}); return 1; $$ LANGUAGE plperl; The creation of this function will fail as its use of a forbidden operation will be caught by the validator. Sometimes it is desirable to write Perl functions that are not restricted. For example, one might want a Perl function that sends mail. To handle these cases, PL/Perl can also be installed as an untrusted language (usually called PL/PerlUPL/PerlU). In this case the full Perl language is available. When installing the language, the language name plperlu will select the untrusted PL/Perl variant. The writer of a PL/PerlU function must take care that the function cannot be used to do anything unwanted, since it will be able to do anything that could be done by a user logged in as the database administrator. Note that the database system allows only database superusers to create functions in untrusted languages. If the above function was created by a superuser using the language plperlu, execution would succeed. In the same way, anonymous code blocks written in Perl can use restricted operations if the language is specified as plperlu rather than plperl, but the caller must be a superuser. While PL/Perl functions run in a separate Perl interpreter for each SQL role, all PL/PerlU functions executed in a given session run in a single Perl interpreter (which is not any of the ones used for PL/Perl functions). This allows PL/PerlU functions to share data freely, but no communication can occur between PL/Perl and PL/PerlU functions. Perl cannot support multiple interpreters within one process unless it was built with the appropriate flags, namely either usemultiplicity or useithreads. (usemultiplicity is preferred unless you actually need to use threads. For more details, see the perlembed man page.) If PL/Perl is used with a copy of Perl that was not built this way, then it is only possible to have one Perl interpreter per session, and so any one session can only execute either PL/PerlU functions, or PL/Perl functions that are all called by the same SQL role. PL/Perl can be used to write trigger functions. In a trigger function, the hash reference $_TD contains information about the current trigger event. $_TD is a global variable, which gets a separate local value for each invocation of the trigger. The fields of the $_TD hash reference are: $_TD->{new}{foo} NEW value of column foo $_TD->{old}{foo} OLD value of column foo $_TD->{name} Name of the trigger being called $_TD->{event} Trigger event: INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, TRUNCATE, or UNKNOWN $_TD->{when} When the trigger was called: BEFORE, AFTER, INSTEAD OF, or UNKNOWN $_TD->{level} The trigger level: ROW, STATEMENT, or UNKNOWN $_TD->{relid} OID of the table on which the trigger fired $_TD->{table_name} Name of the table on which the trigger fired $_TD->{relname} Name of the table on which the trigger fired. This has been deprecated, and could be removed in a future release. Please use $_TD->{table_name} instead. $_TD->{table_schema} Name of the schema in which the table on which the trigger fired, is $_TD->{argc} Number of arguments of the trigger function @{$_TD->{args}} Arguments of the trigger function. Does not exist if $_TD->{argc} is 0. Row-level triggers can return one of the following: return; Execute the operation "SKIP" Don't execute the operation "MODIFY" Indicates that the NEW row was modified by the trigger function Here is an example of a trigger function, illustrating some of the above: CREATE TABLE test ( i int, v varchar ); CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION valid_id() RETURNS trigger AS $$ if (($_TD->{new}{i} >= 100) || ($_TD->{new}{i} <= 0)) { return "SKIP"; # skip INSERT/UPDATE command } elsif ($_TD->{new}{v} ne "immortal") { $_TD->{new}{v} .= "(modified by trigger)"; return "MODIFY"; # modify row and execute INSERT/UPDATE command } else { return; # execute INSERT/UPDATE command } $$ LANGUAGE plperl; CREATE TRIGGER test_valid_id_trig BEFORE INSERT OR UPDATE ON test FOR EACH ROW EXECUTE FUNCTION valid_id(); PL/Perl can be used to write event trigger functions. In an event trigger function, the hash reference $_TD contains information about the current trigger event. $_TD is a global variable, which gets a separate local value for each invocation of the trigger. The fields of the $_TD hash reference are: $_TD->{event} The name of the event the trigger is fired for. $_TD->{tag} The command tag for which the trigger is fired. The return value of the trigger function is ignored. Here is an example of an event trigger function, illustrating some of the above: CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION perlsnitch() RETURNS event_trigger AS $$ elog(NOTICE, "perlsnitch: " . $_TD->{event} . " " . $_TD->{tag} . " "); $$ LANGUAGE plperl; CREATE EVENT TRIGGER perl_a_snitch ON ddl_command_start EXECUTE FUNCTION perlsnitch(); This section lists configuration parameters that affect PL/Perl. plperl.on_init (string) plperl.on_init configuration parameter Specifies Perl code to be executed when a Perl interpreter is first initialized, before it is specialized for use by plperl or plperlu. The SPI functions are not available when this code is executed. If the code fails with an error it will abort the initialization of the interpreter and propagate out to the calling query, causing the current transaction or subtransaction to be aborted. The Perl code is limited to a single string. Longer code can be placed into a module and loaded by the on_init string. Examples: plperl.on_init = 'require "plperlinit.pl"' plperl.on_init = 'use lib "/my/app"; use MyApp::PgInit;' Any modules loaded by plperl.on_init, either directly or indirectly, will be available for use by plperl. This may create a security risk. To see what modules have been loaded you can use: DO 'elog(WARNING, join ", ", sort keys %INC)' LANGUAGE plperl; Initialization will happen in the postmaster if the plperl library is included in , in which case extra consideration should be given to the risk of destabilizing the postmaster. The principal reason for making use of this feature is that Perl modules loaded by plperl.on_init need be loaded only at postmaster start, and will be instantly available without loading overhead in individual database sessions. However, keep in mind that the overhead is avoided only for the first Perl interpreter used by a database session — either PL/PerlU, or PL/Perl for the first SQL role that calls a PL/Perl function. Any additional Perl interpreters created in a database session will have to execute plperl.on_init afresh. Also, on Windows there will be no savings whatsoever from preloading, since the Perl interpreter created in the postmaster process does not propagate to child processes. This parameter can only be set in the postgresql.conf file or on the server command line. plperl.on_plperl_init (string) plperl.on_plperl_init configuration parameter plperl.on_plperlu_init (string) plperl.on_plperlu_init configuration parameter These parameters specify Perl code to be executed when a Perl interpreter is specialized for plperl or plperlu respectively. This will happen when a PL/Perl or PL/PerlU function is first executed in a database session, or when an additional interpreter has to be created because the other language is called or a PL/Perl function is called by a new SQL role. This follows any initialization done by plperl.on_init. The SPI functions are not available when this code is executed. The Perl code in plperl.on_plperl_init is executed after locking down the interpreter, and thus it can only perform trusted operations. If the code fails with an error it will abort the initialization and propagate out to the calling query, causing the current transaction or subtransaction to be aborted. Any actions already done within Perl won't be undone; however, that interpreter won't be used again. If the language is used again the initialization will be attempted again within a fresh Perl interpreter. Only superusers can change these settings. Although these settings can be changed within a session, such changes will not affect Perl interpreters that have already been used to execute functions. plperl.use_strict (boolean) plperl.use_strict configuration parameter When set true subsequent compilations of PL/Perl functions will have the strict pragma enabled. This parameter does not affect functions already compiled in the current session. The following features are currently missing from PL/Perl, but they would make welcome contributions. PL/Perl functions cannot call each other directly. SPI is not yet fully implemented. If you are fetching very large data sets using spi_exec_query, you should be aware that these will all go into memory. You can avoid this by using spi_query/spi_fetchrow as illustrated earlier. A similar problem occurs if a set-returning function passes a large set of rows back to PostgreSQL via return. You can avoid this problem too by instead using return_next for each row returned, as shown previously. When a session ends normally, not due to a fatal error, any END blocks that have been defined are executed. Currently no other actions are performed. Specifically, file handles are not automatically flushed and objects are not automatically destroyed.