What's the easiest way to return a recordset from a PostgreSQL stored procedure?

Question

I simply have a table that contains a list of countries and their ISO country codes. I\'m wrapping the query in a stored procedure (aka function) such as:

CREAT         


        

Answer 1

There is also the option of using RETURNS TABLE(...) (as described in the PostgreSQL Manual), which I personally prefer:

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION get_countries()
RETURNS TABLE(
    country_code text,
    country_name text
)
AS $$
    SELECT country_code, country_name FROM country_codes
$$ LANGUAGE sql;

This is effectively the same as using SETOF tablename, but declares the table structure inline instead of referencing an existing object, so joins and such will still work.