Re: psql metaqueries with \gexec

On 2/19/16 7:32 PM, Corey Huinker wrote:

Wow, and I thought *I* liked metaprogramming! :)

I like what you've proposed, though I am wondering if you considered 
doing something server-side instead? It seems a shame to do all this 
work and exclude all other tools.

I frequently find myself creating a function that is just a wrapper on 
EXECUTE for this purpose, but obviously that has transactional limitations.

FWIW, I also wish we had something better than format() for this stuff. 
I did create [1] towards that end, but it currently depends on some C 
code, which is cumbersome.

> I am not sure that "gexec" is the right name for this command. Others
> considered were \execute_each, \meta, \gmeta, \geach, as well as adding
> a "<" parameter to the \g command.

\gexec sounds fine to me. I would think \g < would be something done at 
the shell level...

[1] 
https://github.com/decibel/trunklet-format/blob/master/doc/trunklet-format.asc
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Jim Nasby, Data Architect, Blue Treble Consulting, Austin TX
Experts in Analytics, Data Architecture and PostgreSQL
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