Re: Stored procedures vs Functions

On Friday 21 December 2001 12:27 pm, you wrote:
> Tom,
>
> I've switched topics so I started a new thread, but your last comment about
> 7.2 made me think of a lingering question I've had.  I've seen posts about
> stored procedures and functions not being able to return result sets, etc.
>
> In my last job I did e-commerce on a win2k platform with SQL 7.0.  We used
> stored procedures extensively and found them to be very advantageous
> (especially on the occasions we need to return 2 different result sets from
> 2 different queries within the stored proc).  My question then:  are there
> stored procedures that execute like SQL 7.0 stored procs and if so are they
> functions and if so do I need to use a specific language or syntax?

Stored procedures/functions are not able to return result sets. You might be
able to use a combination of functions and views to accomplish your task in a
similar way. Functions and stored procedures are interchangable when refering
to postgres. You can write a stored procedure in any of several built in
languages (PL == procedural language): PL/PgSQL, PL/perl, PL/python, PL/tcl;
alternatively, you can make your own language (although that involves a
considerable amount of effort).

Hope this helps,
    Jeff Davis