postgresql empty string has length 1 - postgresql

I have a column type text which looks like empty string but the length of it is 1.
the following sql
select
teilnetz_name,
length(teilnetz_name),
trim(teilnetz_name),
length(trim(teilnetz_name))
from test_table
results in
teilnetz_name| length| btrim| length
| 1 | | 1
and
select case when trim(teilnetz_name) is distinct from '' then true else false end
from test_table
--return true
select case when teilnetz_name is distinct from null then true else false end
from test_table
--return true
select case when teilnetz_name is distinct from '' then true else false end
from test_table
--return true
select case when teilnetz_name is distinct from ' ' then true else false end
from test_table
--return true
How can I explain this phenomenon ?
I have on postgreql version 12.3

The column probably contains some other whitespace, e.g. a tab character. trim() will only remove real spaces.
Try
length(regexp_replace(teilnetz_name, '\s+', '', 'g'))

There may be a non-printable unicode character in field teilnetz_name.
Try
select encode(teilnetz_name, 'hex') from test_table;
in order to see what teilnetz_name actually contains.

Related

PGSQL selecting columns on certain conditions

In a table I have 5 columns day1, day2... day5. Records in the table can have all days set to TRUE or few days set to TRUE.
Is there any way in PGSQL to select only those columns of a record which have boolean value as TRUE
Example:
My table is: Course, with columns as Course Name, Day1, Day2, Day3, Day4,Day5 with record set as
English,True,False,True,False,True
German,False,False,True,True,True
French,False,True,False,True,True
What I need to display as result set is:
English,Mon,Wed,Fri
German,Wed,Thu,Fri
French,Tue,Thu,Fri
I believe something like the following should do the job. It's a bit ugly because your schema isn't the most awesome. This should work on Postgres 9+
SELECT course, string_agg(day, ',') as days_of_week
FROM
(
SELECT course, 'Mon' as day FROM yourtable WHERE day1 = 'True'
UNION ALL
SELECT course, 'Tue' as day FROM yourtable WHERE day2 = 'True'
UNION ALL
SELECT course, 'Wed' as day FROM yourtable WHERE day3 = 'True'
UNION ALL
SELECT course, 'Thu' as day FROM yourtable WHERE day4 = 'True'
UNION ALL
SELECT course, 'Fri' as day FROM yourtable WHERE day5 = 'True'
) sub
Function like iif missed suddenly but you could to create it simply:
create or replace function iif(boolean, anyelement, anyelement = null) returns anyelement
language sql
immutable
as $$
select case when $1 is null then null when $1 then $2 else $3 end
$$;
then:
select
course_name,
concat_ws(',', iif(day1,'Mon'), iif(day2,'Tue'), iif(day3,'Wed'), iif(day4,'Thu'), iif(day5, 'Fri'))
from course;

Checking if string is in table

Hi I have table called mytable and 1 column first_name , how can I check if 'John' is in this table and return the result as true/false.
You can utilize a EXISTS-query:
select exists (select * from mytable where mytable.first_name = 'John')
The above query will return a boolean which will be true if the sub-query inside the braces returns any rows at all; the boolean will false if the sub-query return no rows.
SELECT count(*) FROM mytable WHERE first_name LIKE 'John';
returns number of occurrences. If there is no John in table, returns zero.
SELECT CASE WHEN COUNT(*) > 0 THEN 'true' ELSE 'false' END
FROM mytable
WHERE first_name LIKE '%John%'

Get complex output type of function that returns record in postgresql

I want to write nice and detailed report on functions in my postgresql database.
I built the following query:
SELECT routine_name, data_type, proargnames
FROM information_schema.routines
join pg_catalog.pg_proc on pg_catalog.pg_proc.proname = information_schema.routines.routine_name
WHERE specific_schema = 'public'
ORDER BY routine_name;
It works as it should (basically returns me what I want it to: function name, output data type and input data type) except one thing:
I have relatively complicated functions and many of them return record.
The thing is, data_type returns me record as well for such functions, while I want detailed list of function output types.
For instance, I have something like this in one of my functions:
RETURNS TABLE("Res" integer, "Output" character varying) AS
How can I make query above (or, perhaps, a new query, if it will solve the problem) return something like
integer, character varying instead of record for such functions?
I am using postgresql 9.2
Thanks in advance!
The RECORD returned value is evaluated at runtime, there is no way that the information can be retrieved this way.
BUT, if RETURNS TABLE("Res" integer, "Output" character varying) AS is used, there is a solution.
The test functions I used:
-- first function, uses RETURNS TABLE
CREATE FUNCTION test_ret(a TEXT, b TEXT)
RETURNS TABLE("Res" integer, "Output" character varying) AS $$
DECLARE
ret RECORD;
BEGIN
-- test
END;$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;
-- second function, test some edge cases
-- same name as above, returns simple integer
CREATE FUNCTION test_ret(a TEXT)
RETURNS INTEGER AS $$
DECLARE
ret RECORD;
BEGIN
-- test
END;$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;
How to retrieve this function return datatype is easy as it's stored into pg_catalog.pg_proc.proallargtypes, the problem is that this is an array of OID. We must unnest this thing and join it to pg_catalog.pg_types.oid.
-- edit: add support for function not returning tables, thx Tommaso Di Bucchianico
WITH pg_proc_with_unnested_proallargtypes AS (
SELECT
pg_catalog.pg_proc.oid,
pg_catalog.pg_proc.proname,
CASE WHEN proallargtypes IS NOT NULL THEN unnest(proallargtypes) ELSE null END AS proallargtype
FROM pg_catalog.pg_proc
JOIN pg_catalog.pg_namespace ON pg_catalog.pg_proc.pronamespace = pg_catalog.pg_namespace.oid
WHERE pg_catalog.pg_namespace.nspname = 'public'
),
pg_proc_with_proallargtypes_names AS (
SELECT
pg_proc_with_unnested_proallargtypes.oid,
pg_proc_with_unnested_proallargtypes.proname,
array_agg(pg_catalog.pg_type.typname) AS proallargtypes
FROM pg_proc_with_unnested_proallargtypes
LEFT JOIN pg_catalog.pg_type ON pg_catalog.pg_type.oid = proallargtype
GROUP BY
pg_proc_with_unnested_proallargtypes.oid,
pg_proc_with_unnested_proallargtypes.proname
)
SELECT
information_schema.routines.specific_name,
information_schema.routines.routine_name,
information_schema.routines.routine_schema,
information_schema.routines.data_type,
pg_proc_with_proallargtypes_names.proallargtypes
FROM information_schema.routines
-- we can declare many function with the same name and schema as long as arg types are different
-- This is the only right way to join pg_catalog.pg_proc and information_schema.routines, sadly
JOIN pg_proc_with_proallargtypes_names
ON pg_proc_with_proallargtypes_names.proname || '_' || pg_proc_with_proallargtypes_names.oid = information_schema.routines.specific_name
;
Any refactoring is welcome :)
Here is the result:
specific_name | routine_name | routine_schema | data_type | proallargtypes
----------------+--------------+----------------+-----------+--------------------------
test_ret_16633 | test_ret | public | record | {text,text,int4,varchar}
test_ret_16635 | test_ret | public | integer | {NULL}
(2 rows)
EDIT
Identification of input and output arguments is not trivial, here is my solution for pg 9.2
-- https://gist.github.com/subssn21/e9e121f6fd5ff50f688d
-- Allow us to use array_remove in pg < 9.3
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION array_remove(a ANYARRAY, e ANYELEMENT)
RETURNS ANYARRAY AS $$
BEGIN
RETURN array(SELECT x FROM unnest(a) x WHERE x <> e);
END;
$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;
-- edit: add support for function not returning tables, thx Tommaso Di Bucchianico
WITH pg_proc_with_unnested_proallargtypes AS (
SELECT
pg_catalog.pg_proc.oid,
pg_catalog.pg_proc.proname,
pg_catalog.pg_proc.proargmodes,
CASE WHEN proallargtypes IS NOT NULL THEN unnest(proallargtypes) ELSE null END AS proallargtype
FROM pg_catalog.pg_proc
JOIN pg_catalog.pg_namespace ON pg_catalog.pg_proc.pronamespace = pg_catalog.pg_namespace.oid
WHERE pg_catalog.pg_namespace.nspname = 'public'
),
pg_proc_with_unnested_proallargtypes_names_and_mode AS (
SELECT
pg_proc_with_unnested_proallargtypes.oid,
pg_proc_with_unnested_proallargtypes.proname,
pg_catalog.pg_type.typname,
-- we can't unnest multiple array of same length the way we expect in pg 9.2
-- just retrieve each mode manually using type row_number
pg_proc_with_unnested_proallargtypes.proargmodes[row_number() OVER w] AS proargmode
FROM pg_proc_with_unnested_proallargtypes
LEFT JOIN pg_catalog.pg_type ON pg_catalog.pg_type.oid = proallargtype
WINDOW w AS (PARTITION BY pg_proc_with_unnested_proallargtypes.proname)
),
pg_proc_with_input_and_output_type_names AS (
SELECT
pg_proc_with_unnested_proallargtypes_names_and_mode.oid,
pg_proc_with_unnested_proallargtypes_names_and_mode.proname,
array_agg(pg_proc_with_unnested_proallargtypes_names_and_mode.typname) AS proallargtypes,
-- we should use FILTER, but that's not available in pg 9.2 :(
array_remove(array_agg(
-- see documentation for proargmodes here: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.2/static/catalog-pg-proc.html
CASE WHEN pg_proc_with_unnested_proallargtypes_names_and_mode.proargmode = ANY(ARRAY['i', 'b', 'v'])
THEN pg_proc_with_unnested_proallargtypes_names_and_mode.typname
ELSE NULL END
), NULL) AS proinputargtypes,
array_remove(array_agg(
-- see documentation for proargmodes here: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.2/static/catalog-pg-proc.html
CASE WHEN pg_proc_with_unnested_proallargtypes_names_and_mode.proargmode = ANY(ARRAY['o', 'b', 't'])
THEN pg_proc_with_unnested_proallargtypes_names_and_mode.typname
ELSE NULL END
), NULL) AS prooutputargtypes
FROM pg_proc_with_unnested_proallargtypes_names_and_mode
GROUP BY
pg_proc_with_unnested_proallargtypes_names_and_mode.oid,
pg_proc_with_unnested_proallargtypes_names_and_mode.proname
)
SELECT
*
FROM pg_proc_with_input_and_output_type_names
;
And here is my sample output:
oid | proname | proallargtypes | proinputargtypes | prooutputargtypes
-------+--------------+--------------------------+------------------+-------------------
16633 | test_ret | {text,text,int4,varchar} | {text,text} | {int4,varchar}
16634 | array_remove | {NULL} | {} | {}
16635 | test_ret | {NULL} | {} | {}
(3 rows)
Hope that helps :)
Answer, provided by Clément Prévost, is detailed and educative and therefore I marked it as best, while, however, after I executed suggested script I ended up with empty (filled only by {}) proinputargtypes and prooutputargtypes columnes on my machine. So I conducted a little research on my own, using hints that I learned from the answer above, and wrote following query:
WITH pg_proc_with_unhandled_proallargtypes AS (
SELECT
pg_catalog.pg_proc.oid,
pg_catalog.pg_proc.proname,
pg_catalog.pg_proc.proargmodes,
CASE WHEN proallargtypes IS NOT NULL THEN cast(proallargtypes AS text) ELSE NULL END AS proallargtype,
CASE WHEN array_agg(proargtypes) IS NOT NULL THEN replace(string_agg(proargtypes::text, ','), ' ', ',') ELSE NULL END AS proargtype
FROM pg_catalog.pg_proc
JOIN pg_catalog.pg_namespace ON pg_catalog.pg_proc.pronamespace = pg_catalog.pg_namespace.oid
WHERE pg_catalog.pg_namespace.nspname = 'public'
GROUP BY pg_catalog.pg_proc.oid, pg_catalog.pg_proc.proname, pg_catalog.pg_proc.proargmodes, proallargtype
),
pg_proc_with_unnested_proallargtypes AS(
SELECT proname, CASE WHEN char_length(proargtype) =0 THEN NULL
ELSE ('{' || proargtype || '}')::oid[] end AS inp,
CASE WHEN proallargtype is NULL THEN NULL ELSE replace(proallargtype, proargtype || ',', '')::oid[] end AS output
FROM pg_proc_with_unhandled_proallargtypes
),
smth_input AS(
SELECT proname, unnest(inp) AS inp FROM pg_proc_with_unnested_proallargtypes
),
smth_output AS(
SELECT proname, unnest(output) AS output FROM pg_proc_with_unnested_proallargtypes
),
input_unnested AS(
SELECT proname, string_agg(pg_catalog.pg_type.typname::text, ',') AS fin_input FROM smth_input
JOIN pg_catalog.pg_type ON pg_catalog.pg_type.oid = inp
GROUP BY proname
),
output_unnested AS (
SELECT proname, string_agg(pg_catalog.pg_type.typname::text, ',') AS fin_output FROM smth_output
JOIN pg_catalog.pg_type ON pg_catalog.pg_type.oid = output
GROUP BY proname
)
SELECT input_unnested.proname, fin_input, CASE WHEN fin_output IS NOT NULl THEN fin_output ELSE information_schema.routines.data_type end AS fin_output
FROM input_unnested
LEFT JOIN output_unnested ON input_unnested.proname = output_unnested.proname
JOIN information_schema.routines ON information_schema.routines.routine_name = input_unnested.proname
It might be inefficient a bit and I probably used too much explicict type casting, but it worked.

Check if a row exists or not in postgresql

I have seen many posts about this in SO. But I could not get an answer.
I want to the query to check if a particular row exists or not in a table. If it exists, it should return me a string true and stop the search there itself and if not return false.
select
case when exists (select true from table_name where table_column=?)
then 'true'
else 'false'
end;
But it would be better to just return boolean instead of string:
select exists (select true from table_name where table_column=?);
Spoiler:
-- EXPLAIN ANALYZE
WITH magic AS (
WITH lousy AS ( SELECT * FROM one WHERE num = -1)
SELECT 'True'::text AS truth
WHERE EXISTS (SELECT * FROM lousy)
UNION ALL
SELECT 'False'::text AS truth
WHERE NOT EXISTS (SELECT * FROM lousy)
)
SELECT *
FROM magic
;

Creating a view of frequencies from a table with unknown number of columns

I have a table with n columns and I need to create a view which contains the frequencies of every unique value in every column. n is unknown since, I need to apply the solution on numerous tables with different number of columns.
For example i have table:
column1 column2 column3
value1 value2 value3
value2 value2 value1
value1 value2 value2
The view should be something like this:
columnname value frequency
column1 value1 2
column1 value2 1
column2 value2 3
...
Since I have very little experience with sql any help would be extremely appreciated.
Many thanks in advance!
Thus far I have come up with this but am sort of stonewalled now.
CREATE or REPLACE FUNCTION create_view () RETURNS setof record AS $$
DECLARE
col RECORD;
BEGIN
for col in execute 'select column_name from information_schema.columns
where table_name = ''table123''' LOOP
???
END LOOP;
return;
END;
$$
LANGUAGE 'plpgsql';
Simple SQL:
SELECT 'col1' AS col, col1 AS val, count(*) AS ct FROM tbl GROUP BY col1
UNION ALL
SELECT 'col2', col2, count(*) FROM tbl GROUP BY col2
UNION ALL
SELECT 'col3', col3, count(*) FROM tbl GROUP BY col3
PL/pqSQL function executing dynamic SQL:
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION f_demo(_schema text, _tbl text)
RETURNS TABLE(col text, val text, ct bigint) AS
$xx$
DECLARE
_fld text;
_sql text := '';
BEGIN
FOR _fld IN
SELECT a.attname -- use quote_ident to safeguard against SQLi
FROM pg_catalog.pg_attribute a
WHERE a.attrelid = (COALESCE(_schema || '.', '') || _tbl)::regclass
AND a.attnum > 0
AND NOT a.attisdropped
-- AND a.attname ~~ '%col%' -- if you want to pick specific columns
LOOP
RETURN QUERY EXECUTE
'SELECT $1, ' || quote_ident(_fld) || '::text, count(*)
FROM ' || COALESCE(quote_ident(_schema) || '.', '') || quote_ident(_tbl) || '
GROUP BY 2'
USING _fld;
END LOOP;
END;
$xx$
LANGUAGE 'plpgsql';
Call:
SELECT * FROM f_demo('public', 'mytable');
Or, if you want to use the schema provided by search_path:
SELECT * FROM f_demo(NULL, 'mytable');
Major points
Works for any table and any number of columns with values of any type.
Values are cast to text to simplify my example. Could be done with a polymorphic type, too.
See this related answer for info on plpgsql techniques and links: https://stackoverflow.com/q/8146245/939860