Re: Stored procedures returning rowsets

Jarosław Nozderko wrote:
> Hi,
>
>  I've searched list archives, but the
> problem I'm interested in seems not to
> be frequently mentioned. I've read in
> 7.3 development doc about table functions.
> However, are there any plans to implement
> procedures/functions returning arbitrary
> rowsets (not only from existing table)
> that may be handled without those restrictions,
> as well as return code, as it is, for
> example, in Sybase ASE ?
>

I see Neil answered your question, but I'll add to it a bit. If you're
looking for something like the way Sybase stored procedures work (I
haven't used Sybase but I presume it is similar to MS SQL Server), you
won't see it in 7.3, at least. In other words, do you want to do:

    exec sp_my_proc_name

and have it return un arbitrarily formed result set?

We have had some discussions regarding that, but decided in favor of
table functions because they are much more useful in many ways. You can
join them with other tables, and apply selection criteria to their
output. And the anonymous composite type feature recently added will
improve the flexibility of the table function approach greatly. Also
there is a patch waiting to be accepted which will allow the creation of
named composite types which are not tables or views.

But, I do agree that sometimes the MSSQL/Sybase approach is very useful.
Maybe for 7.4 if enough people can be convinced. There have been recent
discussions regarding implementing "CREATE PROCEDURE" and "CALL
my_procedure" which are steps in this direction.

Joe