On Wed, Jul 29, 2015 at 12:14 PM, Joe Conway <m...@joeconway.com> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > On 07/29/2015 08:56 AM, Corey Huinker wrote: > > On Wed, Jul 29, 2015 at 10:48 AM, Tom Lane <t...@sss.pgh.pa.us Not > > sure why inserting a variable name is so much better than inserting > > a type name? > > > In a polymorphic function, I don't know the return type. It's > > whatever type was specified on the function call. > > > > Say I've written a function with a function like > > outer_polymorphic_function(p_rowtype anyelement,p1 ,p2,p3, ...) > > returns setof anyelement > > Remind me where you get p_rowtype at runtime again? At some point you > are still having to calculate it, no? > > Say I've got a table my_partitioned_table (key1 integer, key2 integer, metric1 integer, metric2 integer); And I've got many partitions on that table. My code lets you do something like this: select key1, key2, sum(metric1) as a_sum_of_sums, sum(metric2) as another_sum_of_sums from execute_buncha_queries(null::my_partitioned_table, 'connection_string_thats_just_a_loopback', array['select key1, key2, sum(metric1), sum(metric2) from my_partition_p1 group by 1,2', 'select key1, key2, sum(metric1), sum(metric2) from my_partition_p2 group by 1,2', ...]) group by 1,2 All those queries happen to return a shape the same as my_partitioned_table. The query takes the partially summed values, spread out across a lot of processors, and does the lighter work of summing the sums. The function execute_buncha_queries fires off those string queries async, enough to fill up X number of processors, fetches results as they happen, and keeps feeding the processors queries until it runs out. But execute_buncha_queries needs to send back results in the shape of whatever value was passed in the first parameter. I can't put a cast around execute_buncha_queries because the function won't know how to cast the results coming back from dblink. select * from execute_lotta_queries(null::my_table_or_type,'connection_string_to_remote_db', array['query 1','query 2','query 3']) Now, it's up to the user to make sure that all the query strings return a query of shape "my_table_or_type", but that's a runtime problem. And obviously, there are a lot of connection strings, but that's too much detail for the problem at hand.