How to migrate oracle's pipelined function into PostgreSQL - postgresql

Question

As I am newbie to plpgSQL,
I stuck while migrating a Oracle query into PostgreSQL.
Oracle query:
create or replace FUNCTION employee_all_case(
p_ugr_id IN integer,
p_case_type_id IN integer
)
RETURN number_tab_t PIPELINED
-- LANGUAGE 'plpgsql'
-- COST 100
-- VOLATILE
-- AS $$
-- DECLARE
is
l_user_id NUMBER;
l_account_id NUMBER;
BEGIN
l_user_id := p_ugr_id;
l_account_id := p_case_type_id;
FOR cases IN
(SELECT ccase.case_id, ccase.employee_id
FROM ct_case ccase
INNER JOIN ct_case_type ctype
ON (ccase.case_type_id=ctype.case_type_id)
WHERE ccase.employee_id = l_user_id)
LOOP
IF cases.employee_id IS NOT NULL THEN
PIPE ROW (cases.case_id);
END IF;
END LOOP;
RETURN;
END;
--$$
When I execute this function then I get the following result
select * from table(select employee_all_case(14533,1190) from dual)
My question here is: I really do not understand the pipelined function and how can I obtain the same result in PostgreSQL as Oracle query ?
Please help.

Answer 1

Thank you guys, your solution was very helpful.
I found the desire result:
-- select * from employee_all_case(14533,1190);
-- drop function employee_all_case
create or replace FUNCTION employee_all_case(p_ugr_id IN integer ,p_case_type_id IN integer)
returns table (case_id double precision)
-- PIPELINED
LANGUAGE 'plpgsql'
COST 100
VOLATILE
AS $$
DECLARE
-- is
l_user_id integer;
l_account_id integer;
BEGIN
l_user_id := cp_lookup$get_user_id_from_ugr_id(p_ugr_id);
l_account_id := cp_lookup$acctid_from_ugr(p_ugr_id);
RETURN QUERY SELECT ccase.case_id
FROM ct_case ccase
INNER JOIN ct_case_type ctype ON ccase.case_type_id = ctype.case_type_id
WHERE ccase.employee_id = p_ugr_id
and ccase.employee_id IS NOT NULL;
--return NEXT;
END;
$$

Answer 2

You would rewrite that to a set returning function:
Change the return type to
RETURNS SETOF integer
and do away with the PIPELINED.
Change the PIPE ROW statement to
RETURN NEXT cases.case_id;
Of course, you will have to do the obvious syntactic changes, like using integer instead of NUMBER and putting the IN before the parameter name.
But actually, it is quite unnecessary to write a function for that. Doing it in a single SELECT statement would be both simpler and faster.

Answer 3

Pipelined functions are best translated to a simple SQL function returning a table.
Something like this:
create or replace function employee_all_case(p_ugr_id integer, p_case_type_IN integer)
returns table (case_id integer)
as
$$
SELECT ccase.case_id
FROM ct_case ccase
INNER JOIN ct_case_type ctype ON ccase.case_type_id = ctype.case_type_id
WHERE ccase.employee_id = p_ugr_id
and cases.employee_id IS NOT NULL;
$$
language sql;
Note that your sample code did not use the second parameter p_case_type_id.
Usage is also more straightforward:
select *
from employee_all_case(14533,1190);

Answer 4

Before diving into the solution, I will provide some information which will help you to understand better.
So basically PIPELINED came into picture for improving memory allocation at run time.
As you all know collections will occupy space when ever they got created. So the more you use, the more memory will get allocated.
Pipelining negates the need to build huge collections by piping rows out of the function.
saving memory and allowing subsequent processing to start before all the rows are generated.
Pipelined table functions include the PIPELINED clause and use the PIPE ROW call to push rows out of the function as soon as they are created, rather than building up a table collection.
By using Pipelined how memory usage will be optimized?
Well, it's very simple. instead of storing data into an array, just process the data by using pipe row(desired type). This actually returns the row and process the next row.
coming to solution in plpgsql
simple but not preferred while storing large data.
Remove PIPELINED from return declaration and return an array of desired type. something like RETURNS typrec2[].
Where ever you are using pipe row(), add that entry to array and finally return that array.
create a temp table like
CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE temp_table (required fields) ON COMMIT DROP;
and insert data into it. Replace pipe row with insert statement and finally return statement like
return query select * from temp_table
**The best link for understanding PIPELINED in oracle [https://oracle-base.com/articles/misc/pipelined-table-functions]
pretty ordinary for postgres reference [http://manojadinesh.blogspot.com/2011/11/pipelined-in-oracle-as-well-in.html]
Hope this helps some one conceptually.