<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> <HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >User-Defined Aggregates</TITLE ><META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.79"><LINK REV="MADE" HREF="mailto:pgsql-docs@postgresql.org"><LINK REL="HOME" TITLE="PostgreSQL 8.0.11 Documentation" HREF="index.html"><LINK REL="UP" TITLE="Extending SQL" HREF="extend.html"><LINK REL="PREVIOUS" TITLE="C-Language Functions" HREF="xfunc-c.html"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="User-Defined Types" HREF="xtypes.html"><LINK REL="STYLESHEET" TYPE="text/css" HREF="stylesheet.css"><META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"><META NAME="creation" CONTENT="2007-02-02T03:57:22"></HEAD ><BODY CLASS="SECT1" ><DIV CLASS="NAVHEADER" ><TABLE SUMMARY="Header navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TH COLSPAN="5" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" >PostgreSQL 8.0.11 Documentation</TH ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="xfunc-c.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="extend.html" >Fast Backward</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="60%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" >Chapter 31. Extending <ACRONYM CLASS="ACRONYM" >SQL</ACRONYM ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="extend.html" >Fast Forward</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="xtypes.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><DIV CLASS="SECT1" ><H1 CLASS="SECT1" ><A NAME="XAGGR" >31.10. User-Defined Aggregates</A ></H1 ><A NAME="AEN30705" ></A ><P > Aggregate functions in <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >PostgreSQL</SPAN > are expressed as <I CLASS="FIRSTTERM" >state values</I > and <I CLASS="FIRSTTERM" >state transition functions</I >. That is, an aggregate can be defined in terms of state that is modified whenever an input item is processed. To define a new aggregate function, one selects a data type for the state value, an initial value for the state, and a state transition function. The state transition function is just an ordinary function that could also be used outside the context of the aggregate. A <I CLASS="FIRSTTERM" >final function</I > can also be specified, in case the desired result of the aggregate is different from the data that needs to be kept in the running state value. </P ><P > Thus, in addition to the argument and result data types seen by a user of the aggregate, there is an internal state-value data type that may be different from both the argument and result types. </P ><P > If we define an aggregate that does not use a final function, we have an aggregate that computes a running function of the column values from each row. <CODE CLASS="FUNCTION" >sum</CODE > is an example of this kind of aggregate. <CODE CLASS="FUNCTION" >sum</CODE > starts at zero and always adds the current row's value to its running total. For example, if we want to make a <CODE CLASS="FUNCTION" >sum</CODE > aggregate to work on a data type for complex numbers, we only need the addition function for that data type. The aggregate definition would be: </P><PRE CLASS="SCREEN" >CREATE AGGREGATE complex_sum ( sfunc = complex_add, basetype = complex, stype = complex, initcond = '(0,0)' ); SELECT complex_sum(a) FROM test_complex; complex_sum ------------- (34,53.9)</PRE ><P> (In practice, we'd just name the aggregate <CODE CLASS="FUNCTION" >sum</CODE > and rely on <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >PostgreSQL</SPAN > to figure out which kind of sum to apply to a column of type <TT CLASS="TYPE" >complex</TT >.) </P ><P > The above definition of <CODE CLASS="FUNCTION" >sum</CODE > will return zero (the initial state condition) if there are no nonnull input values. Perhaps we want to return null in that case instead — the SQL standard expects <CODE CLASS="FUNCTION" >sum</CODE > to behave that way. We can do this simply by omitting the <TT CLASS="LITERAL" >initcond</TT > phrase, so that the initial state condition is null. Ordinarily this would mean that the <TT CLASS="LITERAL" >sfunc</TT > would need to check for a null state-condition input, but for <CODE CLASS="FUNCTION" >sum</CODE > and some other simple aggregates like <CODE CLASS="FUNCTION" >max</CODE > and <CODE CLASS="FUNCTION" >min</CODE >, it is sufficient to insert the first nonnull input value into the state variable and then start applying the transition function at the second nonnull input value. <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >PostgreSQL</SPAN > will do that automatically if the initial condition is null and the transition function is marked <SPAN CLASS="QUOTE" >"strict"</SPAN > (i.e., not to be called for null inputs). </P ><P > Another bit of default behavior for a <SPAN CLASS="QUOTE" >"strict"</SPAN > transition function is that the previous state value is retained unchanged whenever a null input value is encountered. Thus, null values are ignored. If you need some other behavior for null inputs, just do not define your transition function as strict, and code it to test for null inputs and do whatever is needed. </P ><P > <CODE CLASS="FUNCTION" >avg</CODE > (average) is a more complex example of an aggregate. It requires two pieces of running state: the sum of the inputs and the count of the number of inputs. The final result is obtained by dividing these quantities. Average is typically implemented by using a two-element array as the state value. For example, the built-in implementation of <CODE CLASS="FUNCTION" >avg(float8)</CODE > looks like: </P><PRE CLASS="PROGRAMLISTING" >CREATE AGGREGATE avg ( sfunc = float8_accum, basetype = float8, stype = float8[], finalfunc = float8_avg, initcond = '{0,0}' );</PRE ><P> </P ><P > Aggregate functions may use polymorphic state transition functions or final functions, so that the same functions can be used to implement multiple aggregates. See <A HREF="extend-type-system.html#EXTEND-TYPES-POLYMORPHIC" >Section 31.2.5</A > for an explanation of polymorphic functions. Going a step further, the aggregate function itself may be specified with a polymorphic base type and state type, allowing a single aggregate definition to serve for multiple input data types. Here is an example of a polymorphic aggregate: </P><PRE CLASS="PROGRAMLISTING" >CREATE AGGREGATE array_accum ( sfunc = array_append, basetype = anyelement, stype = anyarray, initcond = '{}' );</PRE ><P> Here, the actual state type for any aggregate call is the array type having the actual input type as elements. </P ><P > Here's the output using two different actual data types as arguments: </P><PRE CLASS="PROGRAMLISTING" >SELECT attrelid::regclass, array_accum(attname) FROM pg_attribute WHERE attnum > 0 AND attrelid = 'pg_user'::regclass GROUP BY attrelid; attrelid | array_accum ----------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------- pg_user | {usename,usesysid,usecreatedb,usesuper,usecatupd,passwd,valuntil,useconfig} (1 row) SELECT attrelid::regclass, array_accum(atttypid) FROM pg_attribute WHERE attnum > 0 AND attrelid = 'pg_user'::regclass GROUP BY attrelid; attrelid | array_accum ----------+------------------------------ pg_user | {19,23,16,16,16,25,702,1009} (1 row)</PRE ><P> </P ><P > For further details see the <A HREF="sql-createaggregate.html" ><I >CREATE AGGREGATE</I ></A > command. </P ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="NAVFOOTER" ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"><TABLE SUMMARY="Footer navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="xfunc-c.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="index.html" ACCESSKEY="H" >Home</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="xtypes.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" >C-Language Functions</TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="extend.html" ACCESSKEY="U" >Up</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" >User-Defined Types</TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >