Re: Procedural Languages

On Thu, 2012-05-31 at 11:52 -0600, David Salisbury wrote:
> I've often wondered how these "external" languages perform, figuring
> that using a native language would perform better.

One language isn't more "native" than another, really. SQL is a bit more
native in the sense that it might be inlined, and C is more native in
the sense that it is native code.

But PL/pgSQL just happens to be a good language when you are doing
mostly SQL with some procedural aspects, it doesn't really have an
inherent performance advantage over external PLs. There may be some
implementation quality differences, however.

> If I'm executing say a PL/Perl procedure, once I've executed it the first
> time, can I take it the interpreter is now resident withing the PG footprint?

Yes.

Regards,
    Jeff Davis