PHP PG Functions

csn

aka plPHP. Wild!

http://www.commandprompt.com/entry.lxp?lxpe=260

Sxooter

I'm bursting with joy (but you knew that, didn't you? 🙂)

Sxooter

I also like the idea that PHP's safe mode might allow it to be installed as either trusted or untrusted. The idea of a trusted PHP language (i.e. available to joe average user without security issues) is quite intriguing.

csn

Yeah, I never really thought about the possibility of being able to use PHP. I guess it'd be a lot like using it for the command line (except no using echo, et al).

Sxooter

This is truly interesting from a couple of other perspectives. One of which is that the first "procedural language" for MySQL was supposed to be PHP.

Since Postgresql already has four or five languages in the core (plsql, plpgsql, plperl, plpython, plC), and another 5 or so as add ons (plR, plRuby, plPHP, plJ etc...) this is just one more of them. But Postgresql still beat MySQL to the punch.

The other reason it's so interesting is that there was an article out a while back on why using postgresql with stored procs was bad because you'd wind up programming your database in one language and your application layer in another.

With all the languages supported for stored procs in postgresql now, that's really a non-issue.

csn

Originally posted by Sxooter
The other reason it's so interesting is that there was an article out a while back on why using postgresql with stored procs was bad because you'd wind up programming your database in one language and your application layer in another.

Sounds like a pretty lame argument to me 😉. Learning something like pl/pgsql isn't that difficult. With Oracle, you'd probably want to use p/sql. And whatever MS's proc language is for MSSQL.

PG is smokin' MySQL in more and more areas 🙂.

As for plPHP, I wonder how you'd access variables such as NEW, OLD, etc. for trigger functions.

csn

Or use function parameters - the examples on the site don't appear to use any.

Sxooter

I just downloaded the test cases file (looks interesting) and it has this as an example:

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION sum(integer, integer) RETURNS integer AS '
return $arg0+$arg1;
' LANGUAGE 'plphp';

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION md5(varchar) RETURNS varchar AS '
return  md5($arg0);
' LANGUAGE 'plphp';

But there's no example of a trigger playing with new/old there. Just triggers that return static text. My guess is that there's an old and new array or something like that.

csn

Maybe everything's in $_SERVER['argv'].

Sxooter

Well, I just asked the guys on the mailing list, so I'll report back here on what I find out.

csn

There's a post over in the Smarty forum stating that using NEW/OLD/etc. isn't possible currently, but it's on plphp's TODO list.

http://www.phpinsider.com/smarty-forum/viewtopic.php?t=464&highlight=

(The archive link for plphp's ml gives me a 404)
http://mail.commandprompt.com/mailman/listinfo/plphp
http://mail.commandprompt.com/pipermail/plphp/

Sxooter

Yep, I just got the same answer from the guys at command prompt. Apparently it's also a problem for plPerl too.

csn

Did you find out anything more about safe mode? 🙂

Sxooter

Nope, but I think it can be done. It would be interesting to see PHP, so often maligned by Python folks, gain trusted status in Postgresql while Python is having its trusted status yanked due to problems with rexec. 🙂

I did get back one answer that implied it was a possibility, and that we should be using the CLI version not the CGI version of PHP. But it wasn't completely clear if he was referring to the safe mode thing or not.