trouble writing plpgsql

Hi,

I want to make a function to parsetext and return key-value pairs
create or replace function extractinfo (text) returns table (key char[1], val text) 
language plpgsql as $$

I first tried
declare
xx record;
begin
....
xx.key = ....; xx.val = ....;
return next xx:

This is not possible because xx needs to know its structure before the fields can be assiged to.
Could I declare xx as having these fields in the first place, do Ineedto create a type for key, val
first?

Wolfgang Hamann