Re: query and stored procedures

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Well, I'd use pgsql - as a quick idea you could use something like:

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION checkssn(varchar)
RETURNS SETOF whatever_your_table AS
'
DECLARE
    incoming_ssn ALIAS FOR $1;
    result whatever_your_table%ROWTYPE;
        my_internal_id VARCHAR;
BEGIN
    -- check if this is a ssn or internal id
    SELECT INTO my_internal_id internal_id FROM whatever_your_table WHERE internal_id=incoming_ssn;
    IF NOT FOUND THEN
        -- probably a ssn, so the above doesnt hit anything
        SELECT INTO my_internal_id internal_id FROM other_table WHERE ssn=incoming_ssn;
        IF NOT FOUND THEN
            RAISE EXCEPTION ''SSN not found!'';
        END IF;
    END IF;

    -- since this one returns SETOF you have to loop over the result, even if its just one
    FOR result IN SELECT * FROM whatever_your_table WHERE internal_id=my_internal_id LOOP
        RETURN NEXT result;
    END LOOP;
    RETURN;
END;
' LANGUAGE 'plpgsql' VOLATILE;



Hope that helps

UC


On Wednesday 05 January 2005 04:50 pm, David Bear wrote:
> I'm so totally new to postgresql that I'm not sure how to word this.
>
> I want to create a query, that does two things
>
> 1) take input in the form of a string of numbers, and test if
>   a) is ssn
>   b) or internal id
>
> if the string is an ssn, make a second query to another data base,
> asking it to convert the ssn to our internal id
>
> otherwise,
>
> 2) use the id given to query an existing table
>
> I'm not sure what feature/function postgresql has to help me do this.
> I'd like to stick with using python as my language, and I'm guessing
> this would be stored procedure, but I'm too new to know.
>
> Please point me to some good reading.

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