create function greatest(anyelement, anyelement) returns anyelement as 'select case when $1>$2 then $1 else $2 end' language sql;
Any chance of this making it into 7.4's contrib? Maybe with enough documentation to make it a tutorial for PostgreSQL's user functions?
You do have to create several greatest() functions for different numbers of arguments, but not one for each datatype you want to handle.
Insignificant, compared with the flexiblity.
I have not seen enough requests for a native LEAST/GREATEST implementation to make me think we need to do more than this... certainly I'd rather spend development effort on general facilities like polymorphism and inlining than on creating one-use facilities like built-in LEAST/GREATEST.
Nice. It would speed up our current functions too. Thanks, developers, esp. Tom and Joe for this!
Wow, less reasons to use VIEWs when CREATE FUNCTION can be just as fast, but more flexible. Can't wait, IMHO, the advocacy people can and should be promoting this(functions returning sets, and how it can be used) as a killer feature for 7.3 and 7.4. I know I was pretty happy to discover that gem lurking in the documentation in 7.3.
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