Re: Returning a row from a function with an appended array field

On 11/10/2011 12:05 PM, David Johnston wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org
> [mailto:pgsql-general-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Wes Cravens
> Sent: Thursday, November 10, 2011 11:54 AM
> To: pgsql-general@postgresql.org
> Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Returning a row from a function with an appended
> array field
>
> On 11/9/2011 7:19 PM, Wes Cravens wrote:
>> I have an adjacency list kind of table
>>
>> CREATE TABLE thingy (
>>     id int,
>>     parent int
>> );
>>
>> I'd like to be able to write a procedural function that returns a row
>> or rows from this table with an appended field that represents the
> children.
>
>
> If you only care about one level of hierarchy then, yes, WITH RECURSIVE is
> overkill.  You want to use WITH RECURSIVE in those situations where the
> depth of the hierarchy is unknown.

Yes agreed... WITH RECURSIVE would be handy for something like
get_ancestors or get_descendents.

Wes