Now, let's write our first simple Tcl function to make sure that PL/Tcl is installed. We will write a simple factorial calculation function, as shown here:
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION tcl_factorial(integer) RETURNS integer AS $$ set i 1; set fact 1 while {$i <= $1} { set fact [expr $fact * $i] incr i } return $fact $$ LANGUAGE pltcl STRICT;
This function calculates the factorial of a number in an iterative way. Let's try and run it:
postgres=# SELECT tcl_factorial(5); tcl_factorial --------------- 120 (1 row)
It works and the function looks similar to other functions we have been writing in PL/pgSQL and PL/Python. The CREATE FUNCTION
statement creates a function. It needs a name, function argument type list (you have to use parentheses, even if there are no arguments), a result type, and a language.
The body of the function is just a Tcl script. PostgreSQL passes the body on to a Tcl interpreter to run this subroutine and return the results...