<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> <HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >PL/Perl - Perl Procedural Language</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 8.4.12 Documentation" HREF="index.html"><LINK REL="UP" TITLE="Server Programming" HREF="server-programming.html"><LINK REL="PREVIOUS" TITLE="Tcl Procedure Names" HREF="pltcl-procnames.html"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="PL/Perl Functions and Arguments" HREF="plperl-funcs.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="2012-05-31T23:30:11"></HEAD ><BODY CLASS="CHAPTER" ><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 8.4.12 Documentation</TH ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="pltcl-procnames.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="pltcl.html" >Fast Backward</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="60%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="plpython.html" >Fast Forward</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="plperl-funcs.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><DIV CLASS="CHAPTER" ><H1 ><A NAME="PLPERL" ></A >Chapter 40. PL/Perl - Perl Procedural Language</H1 ><DIV CLASS="TOC" ><DL ><DT ><B >Table of Contents</B ></DT ><DT >40.1. <A HREF="plperl-funcs.html" >PL/Perl Functions and Arguments</A ></DT ><DT >40.2. <A HREF="plperl-database.html" >Database Access from PL/Perl</A ></DT ><DT >40.3. <A HREF="plperl-data.html" >Data Values in PL/Perl</A ></DT ><DT >40.4. <A HREF="plperl-global.html" >Global Values in PL/Perl</A ></DT ><DT >40.5. <A HREF="plperl-trusted.html" >Trusted and Untrusted PL/Perl</A ></DT ><DT >40.6. <A HREF="plperl-triggers.html" >PL/Perl Triggers</A ></DT ><DT >40.7. <A HREF="plperl-missing.html" >Limitations and Missing Features</A ></DT ></DL ></DIV ><A NAME="AEN49383" ></A ><A NAME="AEN49385" ></A ><P > PL/Perl is a loadable procedural language that enables you to write <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >PostgreSQL</SPAN > functions in the <A HREF="http://www.perl.com" TARGET="_top" >Perl programming language</A >. </P ><P > The main advantage to using PL/Perl is that this allows use, within stored functions, of the manyfold <SPAN CLASS="QUOTE" >"string munging"</SPAN > operators and functions available for Perl. Parsing complex strings might be easier using Perl than it is with the string functions and control structures provided in PL/pgSQL. </P ><P > To install PL/Perl in a particular database, use <TT CLASS="LITERAL" >createlang plperl <TT CLASS="REPLACEABLE" ><I >dbname</I ></TT ></TT >. </P ><DIV CLASS="TIP" ><BLOCKQUOTE CLASS="TIP" ><P ><B >Tip: </B > If a language is installed into <TT CLASS="LITERAL" >template1</TT >, all subsequently created databases will have the language installed automatically. </P ></BLOCKQUOTE ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="NOTE" ><BLOCKQUOTE CLASS="NOTE" ><P ><B >Note: </B > Users of source packages must specially enable the build of PL/Perl during the installation process. (Refer to <A HREF="installation.html" >Chapter 15</A > for more information.) Users of binary packages might find PL/Perl in a separate subpackage. </P ></BLOCKQUOTE ></DIV ></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="pltcl-procnames.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="plperl-funcs.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" >Tcl Procedure Names</TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="server-programming.html" ACCESSKEY="U" >Up</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" >PL/Perl Functions and Arguments</TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >