PostgreSQL has a pg_input_error_info() function that allows us to see the error details that would be returned if we were to pass an invalid value for the specified data type.
Basically it tests whether the given string is valid input for the specified data type. If invalid, it returns the details of the error that would have been thrown. If valid, the result is null.
In PostgreSQL, the pg_input_is_valid() function tests whether the given string is valid input for the specified data type.
It returns a boolean value of either true or false.
This function only works if the data type’s input function has been updated to report invalid input as a “soft” error.
Continue readingIn PostgreSQL we can use the array_replace() function to replace a specified element (or elements) in an array with another element.
The first argument is the array, the second is the element to replace, and the third is the element to replace it with.
Continue readingIn PostgreSQL, we can use the regexp_substr() function to return a substring from a string based on a POSIX regular expression.
We can get the first occurrence or any other subsequent occurrence that matches the expression.
Continue readingIn PostgreSQL, we can use the trim_array() function to trim a given number of elements from the end of an array.
The first argument is the array, and the second is the number of elements to trim.
Continue readingIn PostgreSQL we can use the array_fill() function to create an array filled multiple instances of a given value.
We pass the value to populate as the first argument, followed by the length of the desired array. The resulting array replicates the first argument as specified by the length in the second argument.
We also have the option of passing a third argument to specify the lower bound values of each dimension of the array.
Continue readingIn PostgreSQL we can use the array_to_string() function to convert an array to a string. It converts each array element to its text representation (if needed), and then concatenates all elements using the given delimiter.
Any null values are omitted from the result, but we do have the option of replacing any null values with a given text value.
Continue readingIn PostgreSQL, we can use the unnest() function to expand an array into a set of rows. We pass the array as an argument, and the function returns each element on a separate row.
We can use the function on multi dimensional arrays, and it’s also possible to use it to unnest multiple arrays by including it in the FROM clause of a query.
On the surface, PostgreSQL’s quote_literal() and quote_nullable() functions appear to do the same thing. But there is a difference.
It all comes down to how they deal with null arguments; quote_literal() returns null while quote_nullable() returns the string NULL.
PostgreSQL has a normalize() function that converts a string to the specified Unicode normalization form.
The function can only be used when the server encoding is UTF8.