The PL/pgSQL Language

The PL/pgSQL language is the default PostgreSQL language to implement functions, procedures, and other general SQL-like executable code.

The idea behind PL/pgSQL is to provide a more flexible and rich language to allow for complex computations, conditionals, iterations, and error handling. PL/pgSQL allows us to group several operations, including SQL statements, into code blocks, which are stored and executed on the server side. This has the benefit of reducing the traffic among the client and the backend.

This chapter will cover the following topics:

• What a block of code looks like
• How to execute a block of code with the DO statement
• How to declare, assign, and use variables, as well as how to print messages
• Conditionals, iterations (loops), and special variables
• How to deal with errors and exceptions