On Apr 2, 2010, at 12:12 PM, Tom Lane wrote:
> Alexey Klyukin <al...@commandprompt.com> writes:
>> Is there a reason why only a table free SQL functions are allowed to
>> be inlined ?  I wonder why a simple SQL function containing only a
>> SELECT * FROM table can't be expanded inline ?
> 
> If you're thinking of just replacing the call with a sub-SELECT
> construct, that's no good in general because it would change the
> semantics.  We can and do inline such things when the function
> returns SETOF and is in the FROM list, but a regular scalar subselect
> acts a bit differently than scalar SQL functions historically have.
> 
> Keep in mind also that there's not going to be a lot of benefit from
> inlining other cases, since a subselect that's not in FROM is not
> very optimizable.

Since Alexey was working on this for us, I'll elaborate. The actual use case is 
below. I was hoping that SELECT * FROM 

deci...@workbook.local=# explain analyze  SELECT * FROM test.setting( 'Checks 
disabled' );
                                              QUERY PLAN                        
                       
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Function Scan on setting  (cost=0.00..0.26 rows=1 width=77) (actual 
time=0.136..0.136 rows=1 loops=1)
 Total runtime: 0.151 ms
(2 rows)

deci...@workbook.local=# explain analyze  SELECT * FROM test.settings WHERE 
lower(setting_name) = lower('Checks disabled');
                                            QUERY PLAN                          
                   
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Seq Scan on settings  (cost=0.00..1.06 rows=1 width=77) (actual 
time=0.009..0.010 rows=1 loops=1)
   Filter: (lower(setting_name) = 'checks disabled'::text)
 Total runtime: 0.026 ms
(3 rows)

Same issue when prepared, too (and why is this *slower* with a prepared 
statement??):

deci...@workbook.local=# explain analyze EXECUTE function;
                                              QUERY PLAN                        
                       
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Function Scan on setting  (cost=0.00..0.26 rows=1 width=77) (actual 
time=0.190..0.190 rows=1 loops=1)
 Total runtime: 0.212 ms
(2 rows)

deci...@workbook.local=# explain analyze EXECUTE statement;
                                            QUERY PLAN                          
                   
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Seq Scan on settings  (cost=0.00..1.06 rows=1 width=77) (actual 
time=0.013..0.015 rows=1 loops=1)
   Filter: (lower(setting_name) = 'checks disabled'::text)
 Total runtime: 0.047 ms
(3 rows)


See below for dump. I had hoped that since this was a SQL SRF in a FROM clause 
that it would basically be treated as a macro. BTW, the real use case is that 
this function is called from within some other SQL functions that are then 
executed in plpgsql functions that get executed very, very frequently. 
Worst-case I could pull the code all the way into the plpgsql, but that's 
obviously very ugly.

SET client_encoding = 'SQL_ASCII';
SET standard_conforming_strings = off;
SET check_function_bodies = false;
SET client_min_messages = warning;
SET escape_string_warning = off;
CREATE SCHEMA test;
ALTER SCHEMA test OWNER TO decibel;
SET search_path = test, pg_catalog;
SET default_tablespace = '';
SET default_with_oids = false;
CREATE TABLE settings (
   setting_name text NOT NULL,
   b boolean,
   f double precision,
   i integer,
   t text
);
ALTER TABLE test.settings OWNER TO cnuadmin;
COMMENT ON TABLE settings IS 'This is a seed table.';
CREATE FUNCTION setting(text) RETURNS settings
   LANGUAGE sql
   AS $_$
SELECT * FROM test.settings WHERE lower(setting_name) = lower($1)
$_$;
ALTER FUNCTION test.setting(text) OWNER TO cnuadmin;
COPY settings (setting_name, b, f, i, t) FROM stdin;
Asserts disabled        f       \N      \N      \N
Checks disabled f       \N      \N      \N
Minimum assert level    \N      \N      0       \N
State Contract Numbering: Maximum Contracts Per Run     \N      \N      2000    
\N
\.
ALTER TABLE ONLY settings
   ADD CONSTRAINT settings__pk_setting_name PRIMARY KEY (setting_name);
COMMENT ON CONSTRAINT settings__pk_setting_name ON settings IS 'This PK is 
superfluous given the unique index, but londiste bitches without it.';
CREATE UNIQUE INDEX settings__setting_name ON settings USING btree 
(lower(setting_name));
--
Jim C. Nasby, Database Architect                   j...@nasby.net
512.569.9461 (cell)                         http://jim.nasby.net



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