Create function to compute an average of 3 values - postgresql

Question

I'm trying to write a function in postgre sql to take an average across three columns. I have written the following function:
create function xcol_avg (col1, col2, col3)
returns numeric as $$
begin
return (coalesce(col1, 0) + coalesce(col2,0) +coalesce(col3, 0))/
case when (col 1 is null or col1 = 0 then 0 else 1 end +
case when (col 2 is null or col2 = 0 then 0 else 1 end +
case when (col 3 is null or col3 = 0 then 0 else 1 end;
end
What is the problem with my code? Also, is there a way to get the function to return null if it ends up dividing by 0? Any help is really appreciated.
Thanks!

Answer 1

Actually, you can make a function that will use a variable number of arguments and depending on their number compute the average. In Postgres there's a word VARIADIC for such things:
SQL functions can be declared to accept variable numbers of arguments, so long as all the "optional" arguments are of the same data type
Function code:
CREATE FUNCTION xcol_avg(numeric, VARIADIC numeric[])
RETURNS numeric
LANGUAGE plpgsql
IMMUTABLE
AS $$
BEGIN
RETURN (SELECT AVG(vals) FROM unnest($2 || ARRAY[$1]) t(vals));
END;
$$;
Use case with different number of arguments:
select xcol_avg(1,6); -- returns 3.5
select xcol_avg(1,5.5,4); -- returns 3.5
select xcol_avg(1,2,3,4,5,6,7); -- returns 4
Click on this Button to try this online.
Explanation:
Marking a function as IMMUTABLE improves the execution time by allowing the optimizer to pre-evaluate the function. Immutable functions cannot modify the database and are guaranteed to always return the same results when called with the same input.
Declaring the last parameter of a function as VARIADIC which has to be of an array type lets you provide optional arguments that will be passed to the function as an array. Note that you don't explicitly write the array, you just list your parameters as you normally would.
unnest() is a function that returns a set of rows by expanding an array. In other words it's "unpacking" the array elements into separate rows
|| is an array operator that provides the array-to-array concatenation. Here it serves the purpose of connecting the first (required) argument with the rest given in a VARIADIC array.
AVG() is an aggregate function that computes an average of all input values. In our case it would take "unpacked" rows from a column named vals and compute the average.
With this solution you don't need to worry about dividing by zero, as at least one argument is required and avg() is doing the job you wanted to do manually by building up the denominator.
Apply it in a query:
This function would also work for computing an average of multiple columns in a row. Consider a table tbl with columns name, cost1, cost2, cost3 and below statement:
SELECT
name, cost1, cost2, cost3,
xcol_avg(cost1, cost2, cost3) AS average_cost
FROM tbl
For more general information about CREATE FUNCTION check the resourceful documentation.