Changing message output in PostgreSQL and pgAdminIII - postgresql

This is a small thing, but it's a bit annoying to me and seems like there is probably a way to configure it. Let's say I have the following:
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION baz()
RETURNS void AS
$BODY$
DECLARE
BEGIN
RAISE NOTICE 'I also did some work!';
END;
$BODY$
LANGUAGE plpgsql VOLATILE
COST 100;
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION bar()
RETURNS void AS
$BODY$
DECLARE
BEGIN
RAISE NOTICE 'I did a bunch of work and want you to know about it';
PERFORM baz();
END;
$BODY$
LANGUAGE plpgsql VOLATILE
COST 100;
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION foo()
RETURNS void AS
$BODY$
DECLARE
BEGIN
PERFORM bar();
END;
$BODY$
LANGUAGE plpgsql VOLATILE
COST 100;
select foo();
I get the following output messages:
NOTICE: I did a bunch of work and want you to know about it
CONTEXT: SQL statement "SELECT bar()"
PL/pgSQL function "foo" line 4 at PERFORM
NOTICE: I also did some work!
CONTEXT: SQL statement "SELECT baz()"
PL/pgSQL function "bar" line 5 at PERFORM
SQL statement "SELECT bar()"
PL/pgSQL function "foo" line 4 at PERFORM
Total query runtime: 31 ms.
1 row retrieved.
What I want (usually) is to just see something like:
NOTICE: I did a bunch of work and want you to know about it
NOTICE: I also did some work!
Total query runtime: 31 ms.
1 row retrieved.
Is there a way to control/alter this? Again, it's a small thing and hardly worth a question on Stackoverflow, but if you have a lot of stuff going on it starts to introduce a lot of "noise" into the output and it makes my already overloaded brain hurt trying to sift through it. :)
I'm using PostgreSQL 9.1.5 with pgAdminIII 1.16.0

Try connecting with -q option. The q stands for Quiet and may be what you need.
psql -q -d foo_db
you may also try:
\set verbosity terse
\set quiet on

If you want more control over messaging and interface, it might be worth moving to a real scripting language. Writing database scripts in tools like Python with psycopg2 or Perl with DBD::Pg and DBI is pretty simple.
Not only does using a real scripting language give you total control over messaging, but it also gives you control over error handling, gives you loops and other control structures, and generally offers a much nicer model than raw SQL for scripting tasks.

Related

Any way to make Postgres stricter when creating functions?

We started to use Postgres much more recently, having moved from SQL Server. I've noticed that Postgres parser/compiler allows creation of functions that (it seems to me) can be rejected at creation time.
One example of what I'm talking about is select statements in plpgsql blocks:
create or replace function test() returns void as $$
begin
select * from pg_database;
end;
$$ language plpgsql;
This function fails at runtime with "query has no destination for result data". Why would this error not be caught at function creation time? Is there any case when using select without 'return' in plpgsql block is allowed?
The other type of errors that are not always caught at compile time is type mismatch errors between a declared return type and actual type of the value. These are caught in simple cases, but start to make it to runtime in more complicated functions. I suspect there's some limitations in Postgres type inference/analysis, is there any additional information on this available?
tldr: Is there any way to make Postgres parser/compiler fail more on function creation?
Is there any way to make Postgres parser/compiler fail more on function creation?
That's the purpose of the plpgsql_check extension. It won't prevent the function to be created, though.
test=# create extension plpgsql_check;
CREATE EXTENSION
test=# create or replace function test() returns void as $$
begin
select * from pg_database;
end;
$$ language plpgsql;
test=# select * from plpgsql_check_function('test');
plpgsql_check_function
----------------------------------------------------------------------
error:42601:3:SQL statement:query has no destination for result data

How to use DO in postgres

I am attempting to get a better understanding of the DO command in postgreSQL 9.1
I have following code block,
DO
$do$
BEGIN
IF 1=1 THEN
SELECT 'foo';
ELSE
SELECT 'bar';
END IF;
END
$do$
However it returns the following error:
[42601] ERROR: query has no destination for result data Hint: If you want to discard the results of a SELECT, use PERFORM instead. Where: PL/pgSQL function "inline_code_block" line 4 at SQL statement
PostgreSQL DO command creates and executes some specific short life function. This function has not any interface, and then it cannot to return any output other then changes data in tables and some debug output.
Your example has more than one issues:
Only PostgreSQL table functions can returns some tabular data. But the mechanism is significantly different than MSSQL. PostgreSQL user's should to use RETURN NEXT or RETURN QUERY commands.
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION foo(a int)
RETURNS TABLE(b int, c int) AS $$
BEGIN
RETURN QUERY SELECT i, i + 1 FROM generate_series(1,a) g(i);
END;
$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;
SELECT * FROM foo(10);
DO anonymous functions are not table functions - so no output is allowed.
PostgreSQL 9.1 is not supported version, please upgrade
If you have some experience only from MSSQL, then forget it. A concept of stored procedures of PostgreSQL is very similar to Oracle or DB2, and it is significantly different to MSSQL does. T-SQL integrates procedural and SQL constructs to one set. Oracle, PostgreSQL, ... procedural functionality can embedded SQL, but procedural functionality is not integrated to SQL.
Please, read PostgreSQL PLpgSQL documentation for better imagine about this technology.

Iterations in Postgres

I've prepared two execute statements in PostgreSQL which are both update statements. I'd like to run two of them as an iterative loop e.g.
LOOP
EXECUTE stage1
EXECUTE stage2
IF a = b then EXIT;
END IF
END LOOP
But PostgreSQL doesn't like the syntax. Both prepared statements work fine when run on their own, but they take a bit of time and I need to iterate them many times, so I can't really do this manually. Is there some other way of approaching this?
Simple sql language does not support such constructs. If you whant to write in PLPGSQL syntax you have to write a function to do that:
CREATE FUNCTION some_function() RETURNS void AS $$
--your variable declarations here
BEGIN
--your code here
END;
$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;
you can replace RETURNS void with a type you want to return;
read the documentation here

postgresql privileges Ensuring inserts are only done through functions

Let's say I have a table persons which contains only a name(varchar) and a user client.
I'd like that the only way for client to insert to persons is through the function:
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION add_a_person(a_name varying character)
RETURNS void AS
$BODY$
BEGIN
INSERT INTO persons VALUES(a_name);
END;
$BODY$
LANGUAGE plpgsql VOLATILE COST 100;
So, I don't want to grant client insert privileges on persons and only give execute privilege for add_a_person.
But without doing so, I'd get a permission denied because of the use of insert inside the function.
I have not found a way to this in the postgres documentation about granting privileges.
Is there a way to do this?
You can define the function with SECURITY DEFINER. This will allow the function to run for the restricted user as if they had the higher privileges of the function's creator (which needs to be able to insert into the table).
The last line of the definition would look like this:
LANGUAGE plpgsql VOLATILE COST 100 SECURITY DEFINER;
This is a bit simplistic, but assuming are running 9.2 or later, this is an example of how to check for a single permitted function doing an insert:
CREATE TABLE my_table (col1 text, col2 integer, col3 timestamp);
CREATE FUNCTION my_table_insert_function(col1 text, col2 integer) RETURNS integer AS $$
BEGIN
INSERT INTO my_table VALUES (col1, col2, current_timestamp);
RETURN 1;
END $$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;
CREATE FUNCTION my_table_insert_trigger_function() RETURNS trigger AS $$
DECLARE
stack text;
fn integer;
BEGIN
RAISE EXCEPTION 'secured';
EXCEPTION WHEN OTHERS THEN
BEGIN
GET STACKED DIAGNOSTICS stack = PG_EXCEPTION_CONTEXT;
fn := position('my_table_insert_function' in stack);
IF (fn <= 0) THEN
RAISE EXCEPTION 'Expecting insert from my_table_insert_function'
USING HINT = 'Use function to insert data';
END IF;
RETURN new;
END;
END $$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;
CREATE TRIGGER my_table_insert_trigger BEFORE INSERT ON my_table
FOR EACH ROW EXECUTE PROCEDURE my_table_insert_trigger_function();
And a quick example of usage:
INSERT INTO my_table VALUES ('test one', 1, current_timestamp); -- FAILS
SELECT my_table_insert_function('test one', 1); -- SUCCEEDS
You'll want to peek into the stack in more detail if you want your code to be more robust, secure, etc. Checks for multiple functions are possible, of course, but involve more work. Splitting the stack into multiple lines and parsing it can be fairly involved, so you'll probably want some helper functions if things get more complex.
This is just a proof of concept, but it does what it claims. I would expect this code to be fairly slow given the use of exception handling and stack inspection, so don't use it in performance-critical parts of your application. It's not likely to be suitable for cases where DML statements are frequent, but if security is more important than performance, go for it.
Matthew's answer is correct in that a SECURITY DEFINER will allow the function to run with the privileges of a different user. Documentation for this is at http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/static/sql-createfunction.html
Why are you trying to implement security this way? If you want to enforce some logic on the inserts, then I would strongly recommend doing it with constraints. http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/static/ddl-constraints.html
If you want substantially higher levels of logic than can be reasonably implemented in constraints, I would suggest looking into building a business logic layer between your presentation layer and the data storage layer. You will find that scalability demands this pretty much instantly.
If your goal is to defend against SQL injection then you have found a way that might work, but that will create a heck of a lot of work for you. Worse, it leads to huge volumes of really mindless code that all has to be kept in sync across schema changes. This is pretty rough if you're trying to do anything agile. Consider instead using a programming framework that takes advantage of PREPARE / EXECUTE, which is pretty much all of them at this point.
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/sql-prepare.html

How can I execute pl/pgsql code without creating a function?

With SQL Server, I can execute code ad hoc T-SQL code with full procedural logic through SQL Server Management Studio, or any other client. I've begun working with PostgreSQL and have run into a bit of a difference in that PGSQL requires any logic to be embedded in a function.
Is there a way to execute PL/PGSQL code without creating an executing a function?
Postgres 9
DO $$
-- declare
BEGIN
/* pl/pgsql here */
END $$;
No, not yet. Version 9.0 (still alpha) will have this option (do), you a have to wait until it's released.
I struggled to get this working because it's fairly strict about adding semi colons in exactly the right places. But once you get used to that it works well. Besides the inability to return records of course, however you can raise notices & exceptions and do the other workarounds like using temp tables as #ErwinBrandstetter pointed out in a comment above.
e.g.:
DO
$$
BEGIN
IF EXISTS(SELECT 'any rows?'
FROM {your_table}
WHERE {your_column} = 'blah')
THEN
RAISE NOTICE 'record exists';
ELSE
RAISE EXCEPTION 'record does not exist';
END IF;
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS foo;
CREATE TEMP TABLE foo AS
SELECT 'bar'::character varying(5) as baz;
END
$$;
SELECT * FROM foo;