Re: returning setof in plpgsql

I thought we had an example of this type of function in the docs, but we
don't.  Here is one:
http://www.brasileiro.net:8080/postgres/cookbook/view-recipes.adp?section_id=535&format=long

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Tom Lane wrote:
> "David Durst" <ddurst@larubber.com> writes:
> > CREATE FUNCTION lookup_account(varchar(32)) RETURNS SETOF accounts AS '
> > DECLARE
> >   aname ALIAS FOR $1;
> >   rec RECORD;
> > BEGIN
> >   select into rec * from accounts where accountname = aname;
> >   return rec;
> > END;'
> > LANGUAGE 'plpgsql';
> 
> As written, this function can only return a single row (so you hardly
> need SETOF).  If you intend that it be able to return multiple rows
> when accountname is not unique, then you'll need a loop and RETURN NEXT
> commands.  It'd probably be less tedious to use a SQL-language function:
> 
> CREATE FUNCTION lookup_account(varchar(32)) RETURNS SETOF accounts AS '
> select * from accounts where accountname = $1'
> language sql;
> 
> > This seems to hang when I attempt to select it using:
> 
> > select accountid(
> > lookup_account('some account')),
> > accountname(lookup_account('some account')),
> > type(lookup_account('some account')),
> > balance(lookup_account('some account'));
> 
> It works for me (in 7.3), but in any case that's a bad approach: you're
> invoking the function four times, independently.  Better is
> 
> select accountid,accountname,type,balance
> from lookup_account('some account');
> 
> (again, this syntax requires 7.3)
> 
>             regards, tom lane
> 
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