Re: Manipulating complex types as non-contiguous structures in-memory

It is hard to believe how it is fast

I use buble sort for plpgsql benchmarking. Following variant is suboptimal (but it is perfect for this test)

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION public.buble(a anyarray, OUT r anyarray)
 RETURNS anyarray
 LANGUAGE plpgsql
AS $function$
DECLARE
  aux r%type;
  sorted bool := false;
BEGIN
  r := a;
  WHILE NOT sorted
  LOOP
    sorted := true;
    FOR i IN array_lower(a,1) .. array_upper(a,1) - 1
    LOOP
      IF r[i] > r[i+1] THEN
        sorted := false;
        aux[1] := r[i];
        r[i] := r[i+1]; r[i+1] := aux[1];
      END IF;
    END LOOP;
  END LOOP;
END;
$function$

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION public.array_generator(integer, anyelement, OUT r anyarray)
 RETURNS anyarray
 LANGUAGE plpgsql
AS $function$
BEGIN
  r := (SELECT ARRAY(SELECT random()*$2 FROM generate_series(1,$1)));
END;
$function$

Test for 3000 elements:

Numeric        341sec      8sec

Quicksort is about 3x faster -- so a benefit of this patch is clear.

Regards

Pavel