>>>>> "Tom" == Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> writes:
> Thom Brown <thombrown@gmail.com> writes:
>> As for having plpgsql installed by default, are there any security
>> implications?
Tom> Well, that's pretty much exactly the question --- are there? It
Tom> would certainly make it easier for someone to exploit any other
Tom> security weakness they might find. I believe plain SQL plus SQL
Tom> functions is Turing-complete, but that doesn't mean it's easy or
Tom> fast to write loops etc in it.
Now that we have recursive CTEs, plain SQL is turing-complete without
requiring functions.
(Yes, I did actually prove this a while back, by implementing one of
the known-Turing-complete tag system automata as a single recursive
query. This proof is pretty boring, though, because you wouldn't
actually _use_ that approach in practice.)
Loops in plain SQL are no problem: see generate_series. The last time
we discussed this I demonstrated reasonably straightforward SQL
examples of how to do things like password-cracking (and that was long
before we had CTEs, so it would be even easier now); my challenge to
anyone to produce examples of malicious plpgsql code that couldn't be
reproduced in plain SQL went unanswered.
--
Andrew (irc:RhodiumToad)