CREATE PROCEDURE

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The CREATE PROCEDURE statement defines a stored procedure.

Required privileges

• To define a procedure, a user must have CREATE privilege on the schema of the procedure.
• To define a procedure with a user-defined type, a user must have USAGE privilege on the user-defined type.
• To resolve a procedure, a user must have at least the USAGE privilege on the schema of the procedure.
• To call a procedure, a user must have EXECUTE privilege on the procedure.
• At procedure definition and execution time, a user must have privileges on all the objects referenced in the procedure body. Privileges on referenced objects can be revoked and later procedure calls can fail due to lack of permission.

If you grant EXECUTE privilege as a default privilege at the database level, newly created procedures inherit that privilege from the database.

Synopsis

Parameters

Examples

The following are examples of basic stored procedures. For a more detailed example of a stored procedure, see Create a stored procedure using PL/pgSQL.

Create a stored procedure that uses a composite-type variable

Create a composite variable:

CREATE TYPE comp AS (x INT, y STRING);

Create the procedure, declaring the comp variable you created:

CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE proc() LANGUAGE PLpgSQL AS $$
  DECLARE
    v comp := ROW(1, 'foo');
  BEGIN
    RAISE NOTICE '%', v;
  END
  $$;

CALL proc();

NOTICE: (1,foo)
CALL

Create a stored procedure that uses OUT and INOUT parameters

The following example uses a combination of OUT and INOUT parameters to modify a provided value and output the result. An OUT parameter returns a value, while an INOUT parameter passes an input value and returns a value.

CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE double_triple(INOUT double INT, OUT triple INT) AS
  $$
  BEGIN
    double := double * 2;
    triple := double * 3;
  END;
  $$ LANGUAGE PLpgSQL;

When calling a procedure, you need to supply placeholder values for any OUT parameters. A NULL value is commonly used. When calling a procedure from another routine, you should declare variables that will store the results of the OUT parameters.

CALL double_triple(1, NULL);

  double | triple
---------+---------
       2 |      6

Create a stored procedure that calls a procedure

The following example defines a procedure that calls the double_triple example procedure. The triple_result variable is assigned the result of the OUT parameter, while the double_input variable both provides the input and stores the result of the INOUT parameter.

CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE p(double_input INT) AS
  $$
  DECLARE
    triple_result INT;
  BEGIN
    CALL double_triple(double_input, triple_result);    
    RAISE NOTICE 'Doubled value: %', double_input;
    RAISE NOTICE 'Tripled value: %', triple_result;
  END
  $$ LANGUAGE PLpgSQL;

CALL p(1);

NOTICE: Doubled value: 2
NOTICE: Tripled value: 6
CALL

Create a stored procedure that uses conditional logic

The following example uses PL/pgSQL conditional statements:

CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE proc(a INT, b INT) AS 
  $$
  DECLARE
    result INT;
  BEGIN
    IF a > b THEN
      RAISE NOTICE 'Condition met: a is greater than b';
    ELSE
      RAISE NOTICE 'Condition not met: a is not greater than b';
    END IF;
  END;
  $$ LANGUAGE PLpgSQL;

CALL proc(1, 2);

NOTICE: Condition not met: a is not greater than b
CALL

Create a stored procedure that uses a WHILE loop

The following example uses PL/pgSQL loop statements:

CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE arr_var() AS 
  $$
  DECLARE
    x INT[] := ARRAY[1, 2, 3, 4, 5];
    n INT;
    i INT := 1;
  BEGIN
    n := array_length(x, 1);
    WHILE i <= n LOOP
      RAISE NOTICE '%: %', i, x[i];
      i := i + 1;
    END LOOP;
  END
  $$ LANGUAGE PLpgSQL;

CALL arr_var();

NOTICE: 1: 1
NOTICE: 2: 2
NOTICE: 3: 3
NOTICE: 4: 4
NOTICE: 5: 5

See also

• Stored Procedures
• PL/pgSQL
• CALL
• ALTER PROCEDURE
• DROP PROCEDURE

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