Create a function to get column from multiple tables in PostgreSQL - postgresql

Question

I'm trying to create a function to get a field value from multiple tables in my database. I made script like this:
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION get_all_changes() RETURNS SETOF RECORD AS
$$
DECLARE
tblname VARCHAR;
tblrow RECORD;
row RECORD;
BEGIN
FOR tblrow IN SELECT tablename FROM pg_catalog.pg_tables WHERE schemaname='public' LOOP /*FOREACH tblname IN ARRAY $1 LOOP*/
RAISE NOTICE 'r: %', tblrow.tablename;
FOR row IN SELECT MAX("lastUpdate") FROM tblrow.tablename LOOP
RETURN NEXT row;
END LOOP;
END LOOP;
END
$$
LANGUAGE 'plpgsql' ;
SELECT get_all_changes();
But it is not working, everytime it shows this error
tblrow.tablename" not defined in line "FOR row IN SELECT MAX("lastUpdate") FROM tblrow.tablename LOOP"

Answer 1

Your inner FOR loop must use the FOR...EXECUTE syntax as shown in the manual:
FOR target IN EXECUTE text_expression [ USING expression [, ... ] ] LOOP
statements
END LOOP [ label ];
In your case something along this line:
FOR row IN EXECUTE 'SELECT MAX("lastUpdate") FROM ' || quote_ident(tblrow.tablename) LOOP
RETURN NEXT row;
END LOOP
The reason for this is explained in the manual somewhere else:
Oftentimes you will want to generate dynamic commands inside your PL/pgSQL functions, that is, commands that will involve different tables or different data types each time they are executed. PL/pgSQL's normal attempts to cache plans for commands (as discussed in Section 39.10.2) will not work in such scenarios. To handle this sort of problem, the EXECUTE statement is provided[...]

Answer 2

Answer to your new question (mislabeled as answer):
This can be much simpler. You do not need to create a table just do define a record type.
If at all, you would better create a type with CREATE TYPE, but that's only efficient if you need the type in multiple places. For just a single function, you can use RETURNS TABLE instead :
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION get_all_changes(text[])
RETURNS TABLE (tablename text
,"lastUpdate" timestamp with time zone
,nums integer) AS
$func$
DECLARE
tblname text;
BEGIN
FOREACH tblname IN ARRAY $1 LOOP
RETURN QUERY EXECUTE format(
$f$SELECT '%I', MAX("lastUpdate"), COUNT(*)::int FROM %1$I
$f$, tblname)
END LOOP;
END
$func$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;
A couple more points:
Use RETURN QUERY EXECUTE instead of the nested loop. Much simpler and faster.
Column aliases would only serve as documentation, those names are discarded in favor of the names declared in the RETURNS clause (directly or indirectly).
Use format() with %I to replace the concatenation with quote_ident() and %1$I to refer to the same parameter another time.
count() usually returns type bigint. Cast the integer, since you defined the column in the return type as such: count(*)::int.

Answer 3

Thanks,
I finally made my script like:
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS __rsdb_changes (tablename text,"lastUpdate" timestamp with time zone, nums bigint);
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION get_all_changes(varchar[]) RETURNS SETOF __rsdb_changes AS /*TABLE (tablename varchar(40),"lastUpdate" timestamp with time zone, nums integer)*/
$$
DECLARE
tblname VARCHAR;
tblrow RECORD;
row RECORD;
BEGIN
FOREACH tblname IN ARRAY $1 LOOP
/*RAISE NOTICE 'r: %', tblrow.tablename;*/
FOR row IN EXECUTE 'SELECT CONCAT('''|| quote_ident(tblname) ||''') AS tablename, MAX("lastUpdate") AS "lastUpdate",COUNT(*) AS nums FROM ' || quote_ident(tblname) LOOP
/*RAISE NOTICE 'row.tablename: %',row.tablename;*/
/*RAISE NOTICE 'row.lastUpdate: %',row."lastUpdate";*/
/*RAISE NOTICE 'row.nums: %',row.nums;*/
RETURN NEXT row;
END LOOP;
END LOOP;
RETURN;
END
$$
LANGUAGE 'plpgsql' ;
Well, it works. But it seems I can only create a table to define the return structure instead of just RETURNS SETOF RECORD. Am I right?
Thanks again.