Update intermediate result - postgresql

Question

EDIT
As requested a little background of what I want to achieve. I have a table that I want to query but I don't want to change the table itself. Next the result of the SELECT query (what I called the 'intermediate table') needs to be cleaned a bit. For example certain cells of certain rows need to be swapped and some strings need to be trimmed. Of course this could all be done as postprocessing in, e.g., Python, but I was hoping to do all of this with one query statement.
Being new to Postgresql I want to update the intermediate table that results from a SELECT statement. So I basically want to edit the resulting table from a SELECT statement in one query. I'd like to prevent having to store the intermediate result.
I've tried the following 'with clause':
with result as (
select
a
from
b
)
update result as r
set
a = 'd'
...but that results in ERROR: relation "result" does not exist, while the following does work:
with result as (
select
a
from
b
)
select
*
from
result
As I said, I'm new to Postgresql so it is entirely possible that I'm using the wrong approach.

Answer 1

Depending on the complexity of the transformations you want to perform, you might be able to munge it into the SELECT, which would let you get away with a single query:
WITH foo AS (SELECT lower(name), freq, cumfreq, rank, vec FROM names WHERE name LIKE 'G%')
SELECT ... FROM foo WHERE ...
Or, for more or less unlimited manipulation options, you could create a temp table that will disappear at the end of the current transaction. That doesn't get the job done in a single query, but it does get it all done on the SQL server, which might still be worthwhile.
db=# BEGIN;
BEGIN
db=# CREATE TEMP TABLE foo ON COMMIT DROP AS SELECT * FROM names WHERE name LIKE 'G%';
SELECT 4677
db=# SELECT * FROM foo LIMIT 5;
name | freq | cumfreq | rank | vec
----------+-------+---------+------+-----------------------
GREEN | 0.183 | 11.403 | 35 | 'KRN':1 'green':1
GONZALEZ | 0.166 | 11.915 | 38 | 'KNSL':1 'gonzalez':1
GRAY | 0.106 | 15.921 | 69 | 'KR':1 'gray':1
GONZALES | 0.087 | 18.318 | 94 | 'KNSL':1 'gonzales':1
GRIFFIN | 0.084 | 18.659 | 98 | 'KRFN':1 'griffin':1
(5 rows)
db=# UPDATE foo SET name = lower(name);
UPDATE 4677
db=# SELECT * FROM foo LIMIT 5;
name | freq | cumfreq | rank | vec
--------+-------+---------+-------+---------------------
grube | 0.002 | 67.691 | 7333 | 'KRP':1 'grube':1
gasper | 0.001 | 69.999 | 9027 | 'KSPR':1 'gasper':1
gori | 0.000 | 81.360 | 28946 | 'KR':1 'gori':1
goeltz | 0.000 | 85.471 | 47269 | 'KLTS':1 'goeltz':1
gani | 0.000 | 86.202 | 51743 | 'KN':1 'gani':1
(5 rows)
db=# COMMIT;
COMMIT
db=# SELECT * FROM foo;
ERROR: relation "foo" does not exist