Using Functions in Postgres
Introduction Functions are an extremely important concept in database-side programming, which are a collection of SQL or PL/pgSQL statements encapsulated into a single block of code that can be reused multiple times It acts like a function in other programming languages such as JavaScript and Python and it only runs when explicitly invoked using a SELECT or CALL statement or when nested inside another function. Use cases Functions in PostgreSQL are highly flexible and can be applied to many real-world problems in programming, typically serving the following main purposes: Encapsulation Instead of forcing the backend application to send a long SQL query spanning hundreds of lines with multiple JOIN and GROUP BY clauses, you can hide all that complexity inside a Function. Examples include revenue reports and performance statistics. Data Transformation This is ideal when you need to perform mathematical calculations, process strings, or execute complex IF/ELSE logic on data before returni...