1CREATE LANGUAGE(7) PostgreSQL 16.1 Documentation CREATE LANGUAGE(7)
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6 CREATE_LANGUAGE - define a new procedural language
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9 CREATE [ OR REPLACE ] [ TRUSTED ] [ PROCEDURAL ] LANGUAGE name
10 HANDLER call_handler [ INLINE inline_handler ] [ VALIDATOR valfunction ]
11 CREATE [ OR REPLACE ] [ TRUSTED ] [ PROCEDURAL ] LANGUAGE name
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14 CREATE LANGUAGE registers a new procedural language with a PostgreSQL
15 database. Subsequently, functions and procedures can be defined in this
16 new language.
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18 CREATE LANGUAGE effectively associates the language name with handler
19 function(s) that are responsible for executing functions written in the
20 language. Refer to Chapter 58 for more information about language
21 handlers.
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23 CREATE OR REPLACE LANGUAGE will either create a new language, or
24 replace an existing definition. If the language already exists, its
25 parameters are updated according to the command, but the language's
26 ownership and permissions settings do not change, and any existing
27 functions written in the language are assumed to still be valid.
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29 One must have the PostgreSQL superuser privilege to register a new
30 language or change an existing language's parameters. However, once the
31 language is created it is valid to assign ownership of it to a
32 non-superuser, who may then drop it, change its permissions, rename it,
33 or assign it to a new owner. (Do not, however, assign ownership of the
34 underlying C functions to a non-superuser; that would create a
35 privilege escalation path for that user.)
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37 The form of CREATE LANGUAGE that does not supply any handler function
38 is obsolete. For backwards compatibility with old dump files, it is
39 interpreted as CREATE EXTENSION. That will work if the language has
40 been packaged into an extension of the same name, which is the
41 conventional way to set up procedural languages.
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44 TRUSTED
45 TRUSTED specifies that the language does not grant access to data
46 that the user would not otherwise have. If this key word is omitted
47 when registering the language, only users with the PostgreSQL
48 superuser privilege can use this language to create new functions.
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50 PROCEDURAL
51 This is a noise word.
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53 name
54 The name of the new procedural language. The name must be unique
55 among the languages in the database.
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57 HANDLER call_handler
58 call_handler is the name of a previously registered function that
59 will be called to execute the procedural language's functions. The
60 call handler for a procedural language must be written in a
61 compiled language such as C with version 1 call convention and
62 registered with PostgreSQL as a function taking no arguments and
63 returning the language_handler type, a placeholder type that is
64 simply used to identify the function as a call handler.
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66 INLINE inline_handler
67 inline_handler is the name of a previously registered function that
68 will be called to execute an anonymous code block (DO command) in
69 this language. If no inline_handler function is specified, the
70 language does not support anonymous code blocks. The handler
71 function must take one argument of type internal, which will be the
72 DO command's internal representation, and it will typically return
73 void. The return value of the handler is ignored.
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75 VALIDATOR valfunction
76 valfunction is the name of a previously registered function that
77 will be called when a new function in the language is created, to
78 validate the new function. If no validator function is specified,
79 then a new function will not be checked when it is created. The
80 validator function must take one argument of type oid, which will
81 be the OID of the to-be-created function, and will typically return
82 void.
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84 A validator function would typically inspect the function body for
85 syntactical correctness, but it can also look at other properties
86 of the function, for example if the language cannot handle certain
87 argument types. To signal an error, the validator function should
88 use the ereport() function. The return value of the function is
89 ignored.
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92 Use DROP LANGUAGE to drop procedural languages.
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94 The system catalog pg_language (see Section 53.29) records information
95 about the currently installed languages. Also, the psql command \dL
96 lists the installed languages.
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98 To create functions in a procedural language, a user must have the
99 USAGE privilege for the language. By default, USAGE is granted to
100 PUBLIC (i.e., everyone) for trusted languages. This can be revoked if
101 desired.
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103 Procedural languages are local to individual databases. However, a
104 language can be installed into the template1 database, which will cause
105 it to be available automatically in all subsequently-created databases.
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108 A minimal sequence for creating a new procedural language is:
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110 CREATE FUNCTION plsample_call_handler() RETURNS language_handler
111 AS '$libdir/plsample'
112 LANGUAGE C;
113 CREATE LANGUAGE plsample
114 HANDLER plsample_call_handler;
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116 Typically that would be written in an extension's creation script, and
117 users would do this to install the extension:
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119 CREATE EXTENSION plsample;
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122 CREATE LANGUAGE is a PostgreSQL extension.
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125 ALTER LANGUAGE (ALTER_LANGUAGE(7)), CREATE FUNCTION
126 (CREATE_FUNCTION(7)), DROP LANGUAGE (DROP_LANGUAGE(7)), GRANT(7),
127 REVOKE(7)
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131PostgreSQL 16.1 2023 CREATE LANGUAGE(7)