{"id":12914,"date":"2019-10-27T08:35:24","date_gmt":"2019-10-27T07:35:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/postgresql-check_function_bodies-what-is-it-good-for\/"},"modified":"2019-10-27T08:35:24","modified_gmt":"2019-10-27T07:35:24","slug":"postgresql-check_function_bodies-what-is-it-good-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/postgresql-check_function_bodies-what-is-it-good-for\/","title":{"rendered":"PostgreSQL check_function_bodies, what is it good for?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the probably lesser known PostgreSQL parameters is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.postgresql.org\/docs\/current\/runtime-config-client.html#GUC-CHECK-FUNCTION-BODIES\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">check_function_bodies<\/a>. If you know Oracle, then you for sure faced &#8220;invalid objects&#8221; a lot. In PostgreSQL, by default, there is nothing like an invalid object. That implies that you can not create a function or procedure which references an object that does not yet exist.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Lets assume you want to create a function like this, but the table &#8220;t1&#8221; does not exist:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: sql; gutter: true; first-line: 1\">\npostgres=# create or replace function f1 () returns setof t1 as\n$$\nselect * from t1;\n$$ language 'sql';\nERROR:  type \"t1\" does not exist\n<\/pre>\n<p>PostgreSQL will not create the function as a dependent objects does not exist. Once the table is there the function will be created:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: sql; gutter: true; first-line: 1\">\npostgres=# create table t1 ( a int );\nCREATE TABLE\npostgres=# insert into t1 values(1);\nINSERT 0 1\npostgres=# create or replace function f1 () returns setof t1 as\n$$\nselect * from t1;\n$$ language 'sql';\nCREATE FUNCTION\npostgres=# select * from f1();\na\n---\n1\n<\/pre>\n<p>The issue with that is, that you need to follow the order in which functions gets created. Especially when you need to load functions for other users that can easily become tricky and time consuming. This is where check_function_bodies helps:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: sql; gutter: true; first-line: 1\">\npostgres=# set check_function_bodies = false;\nSET\npostgres=# create or replace function f2 () returns setof t1 as\n$$\nselect * from t2;\n$$ language 'sql';\nCREATE FUNCTION\n<\/pre>\n<p>The function was created although t2 did not exist. Executing the function right now of course will generate an error:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: sql; gutter: true; first-line: 1\">\npostgres=# select * from f2();\nERROR:  relation \"t2\" does not exist\nLINE 2: select * from t2;\n^\nQUERY:\nselect * from t2;\n\nCONTEXT:  SQL function \"f2\" during startup\n<\/pre>\n<p>Once the table is there all is fine:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: sql; gutter: true; first-line: 1\">\npostgres=# create table t2 ( a int );\nCREATE TABLE\npostgres=# insert into t2 values (2);\nINSERT 0 1\npostgres=# select * from f2();\na\n---\n2\n<\/pre>\n<p>This is very helpful when loading objects provided by an external vendor. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.postgresql.org\/docs\/current\/app-pgdump.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pg_dump<\/a> is doing that by default.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the probably lesser known PostgreSQL parameters is check_function_bodies. If you know Oracle, then you for sure faced &#8220;invalid objects&#8221; a lot. In PostgreSQL, by default, there is nothing like an invalid object. That implies that you can not create a function or procedure which references an object that does not yet exist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[229],"tags":[77],"type_dbi":[],"class_list":["post-12914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-database-administration-monitoring","tag-postgresql"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.2 (Yoast SEO v27.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>PostgreSQL check_function_bodies, what is it good for? - dbi Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/postgresql-check_function_bodies-what-is-it-good-for\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"PostgreSQL check_function_bodies, what is it good for?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One of the probably lesser known PostgreSQL parameters is check_function_bodies. If you know Oracle, then you for sure faced &#8220;invalid objects&#8221; a lot. In PostgreSQL, by default, there is nothing like an invalid object. 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He has more than 15 years of experience in management, engineering and optimization of databases and infrastructures, especially on Oracle and PostgreSQL. Since the beginning of his career, he has specialized in Oracle Technologies and is Oracle Certified Professional 12c and Oracle Certified Expert RAC\/GridInfra. Over time, Daniel has become increasingly interested in open source technologies, becoming \u201cTechnology Leader Open Infrastructure\u201d and PostgreSQL expert. \u00a0Based on community or EnterpriseDB tools, he develops and installs complex high available solutions with PostgreSQL. He is also a certified PostgreSQL Plus 9.0 Professional and a Postgres Advanced Server 9.4 Professional. He is a regular speaker at PostgreSQL conferences in Switzerland and Europe. Today Daniel is also supporting our customers on AWS services such as AWS RDS, database migrations into the cloud, EC2 and automated infrastructure management with AWS SSM (System Manager). 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He has more than 15 years of experience in management, engineering and optimization of databases and infrastructures, especially on Oracle and PostgreSQL. Since the beginning of his career, he has specialized in Oracle Technologies and is Oracle Certified Professional 12c and Oracle Certified Expert RAC\/GridInfra. Over time, Daniel has become increasingly interested in open source technologies, becoming \u201cTechnology Leader Open Infrastructure\u201d and PostgreSQL expert. \u00a0Based on community or EnterpriseDB tools, he develops and installs complex high available solutions with PostgreSQL. He is also a certified PostgreSQL Plus 9.0 Professional and a Postgres Advanced Server 9.4 Professional. He is a regular speaker at PostgreSQL conferences in Switzerland and Europe. Today Daniel is also supporting our customers on AWS services such as AWS RDS, database migrations into the cloud, EC2 and automated infrastructure management with AWS SSM (System Manager). He is a certified AWS Solutions Architect Professional. Prior to dbi services, Daniel was Management System Engineer at LC SYSTEMS-Engineering AG in Basel. Before that, he worked as Oracle Developper &amp;\u00a0Project Manager at Delta Energy Solutions AG in Basel (today Powel AG). Daniel holds a diploma in Business Informatics (DHBW, Germany). 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