How to use variable as table name in plpgsql - postgresql

Question

I'm new to plpgsql. I'm trying to run a simple query in plpgsql using a variable as table name in plpgsql. But the variable is being interpreted as the table name instead of the value of the variable being interpreted as variable name.
DECLARE
v_table text;
z_table text;
max_id bigint;
BEGIN
FOR v_table IN
SELECT table_name
FROM information_schema.tables
WHERE table_catalog = 'my_database'
AND table_schema = 'public'
AND table_name not like 'z_%'
LOOP
z_table := 'z_' || v_table;
SELECT max(id) from z_table INTO max_id;
DELETE FROM v_table where id > max_id;
END LOOP;
Some background information. For every table in my database, I have another table starting with "z_". E.g. for a table called "employee" I have identical table called "z_employee". z_employee contains the same set of data as employee. I use it to restore the employee table at the start of every test.
When I run this function I get the following error:
ERROR: relation "z_table" does not exist
LINE 1: SELECT max(id) from z_table
My guess is that I'm not allowed to use the variable z_table in the SQL query. At least not the way I'm using it here. But I don't know how it's supposed to be done.

Answer 1

Use dynamic SQL with EXECUTE, simplify, and escape identifiers properly:
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION f_test()
RETURNS void AS
$func$
DECLARE
v_table text;
BEGIN
FOR v_table IN
SELECT table_name
FROM information_schema.tables
WHERE table_catalog = 'my_database'
AND table_schema = 'public'
AND table_name NOT LIKE 'z_%'
LOOP
EXECUTE format('DELETE FROM %I v WHERE v.id > (SELECT max(id) FROM %I)'
, v_table, 'z_' || v_table);
END LOOP;
END
$func$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;
Table names may need to be quoted to defend against syntax errors or even SQL injection! I use the convenient format() to concatenate the DELETE statement and escape identifiers properly.
A separate SELECT would be more expensive. You can do it all with a single DELETE statement.
Related:
Table name as a PostgreSQL function parameter
Aside:
You might use the (slightly faster) system catalog pg_tables instead:
SELECT tablename
FROM pg_catalog.pg_tables
WHERE schemaname = 'public'
AND tablename NOT LIKE 'z_%'
See:
How to check if a table exists in a given schema
table_catalog in information_schema.tables has no equivalent here. Only tables of the current database are visible anyway. So the above predicate WHERE table_catalog = 'my_database' produces an empty result set when connected to the wrong database.