On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 5:11 PM, David Johnston <polobo@yahoo.com> wrote:
3) Limitation of SQL - explained below:
The function call string that you pass in is just that, a string, the SQL construct within which it resides has no knowledge of its contents.
SQL has the hard requirement that at the time you submit a query all columns must be known. If a function is polymorphic (in the sense it can output different columns/row-types) then when you call that function you must indicate which columns (and types) are going to be output by the function during this specific execution.
I guess crosstabs were not all that I hoped they were (basically pivot tables), but thanks for the clear explanation.