Chapter 4.

SQL Syntax
This chapter describes the syntax of SQL. It forms the foundation for understanding the following
chapters which will go into detail about how SQL commands are applied to define and modify
data.

We also advise users who are already familiar with SQL to read this chapter carefully because it
contains several rules and concepts that are implemented inconsistently among SQL databases
or that are specific to PostgreSQL.

4.1. Lexical Structure

SQL input consists of a sequence of commands. A command is composed of a sequence
of tokens, terminated by a semicolon (“;”). The end of the input stream also terminates a
command. Which tokens are valid depends on the syntax of the particular command.

A token can be a key word, an identifier, a quoted identifier, a literal (or constant), or a special
character symbol. Tokens are normally separated by whitespace (space, tab, newline), but need
not be if there is no ambiguity (which is generally only the case if a special character is adjacent
to some other token type).

For example, the following is (syntactically) valid SQL input:

SELECT * FROM MY_TABLE;

UPDATE MY_TABLE SET A = 5;
INSERT INTO MY_TABLE VALUES (3, 'hi there');

This is a sequence of three commands, one per line (although this is not required; more than one
command can be on a line, and commands can usefully be split across lines).

Additionally, comments can occur in SQL input. They are not tokens, they are effectively
equivalent to whitespace.

The SQL syntax is not very consistent regarding what tokens identify commands and which are
operands or parameters. The first few tokens are generally the command name, so in the above
example we would usually speak of a “SELECT”, an “UPDATE”, and an “INSERT” command. But
for instance the UPDATE command always requires a SET token to appear in a certain position,
and this particular variation of INSERT also requires a VALUES in order to be complete. The
precise syntax rules for each command are described in Part VI.

4.1.1. Identifiers and Key Words

Tokens such as SELECT, UPDATE, or VALUES in the example above are examples of key words,
that is, words that have a fixed meaning in the SQL language. The tokens MY_TABLE and A are
examples of identifiers. They identify names of tables, columns, or other database objects,
depending on the command they are used in. Therefore, they are sometimes simply
called “names”. Key words and identifiers have the same lexical structure, meaning that one
cannot know whether a token is an identifier or a key word without knowing the language. A
complete list of key words can be found in Appendix C.

SQL identifiers and key words must begin with a letter (a-z, but also letters with diacritical marks
and non-Latin letters) or an underscore (_). Subsequent characters in an identifier or key word
can be letters, underscores, digits (0-9), or dollar signs ($). Note that dollar signs are not allowed
in identifiers according to the letter of the SQL standard, so their use might render applications
less portable. The SQL standard will not define a key word that contains digits or starts or ends
with an underscore, so identifiers of this form are safe against possible conflict with future
extensions of the standard.
The system uses no more than NAMEDATALEN-1 bytes of an identifier; longer names can be
written in commands, but they will be truncated. By default, NAMEDATALEN is 64 so the
maximum identifier length is 63 bytes. If this limit is problematic, it can be raised by changing
the NAMEDATALEN constant in src/include/pg_config_manual.h.

Key words and unquoted identifiers are case-insensitive. Therefore:

UPDATE MY_TABLE SET A = 5;

can equivalently be written as:

uPDaTE my_TabLE SeT a = 5;

A convention often used is to write key words in upper case and names in lower case, e.g.:

UPDATE my_table SET a = 5;

There is a second kind of identifier: the delimited identifier or quoted identifier. It is formed by
enclosing an arbitrary sequence of characters in double-quotes ("). A delimited identifier is
always an identifier, never a key word. So "select" could be used to refer to a column or table
named “select”, whereas an unquoted select would be taken as a key word and would therefore
provoke a parse error when used where a table or column name is expected. The example can
be written with quoted identifiers like this:

UPDATE "my_table" SET "a" = 5;

Quoted identifiers can contain any character, except the character with code zero. (To include a
double quote, write two double quotes.) This allows constructing table or column names that
would otherwise not be possible, such as ones containing spaces or ampersands. The length
limitation still applies.

Quoting an identifier also makes it case-sensitive, whereas unquoted names are always folded to
lower case. For example, the identifiers FOO, foo, and "foo" are considered the same
by PostgreSQL, but "Foo" and "FOO" are different from these three and each other. (The folding
of unquoted names to lower case in PostgreSQL is incompatible with the SQL standard, which
says that unquoted names should be folded to upper case. Thus, foo should be equivalent
to "FOO" not "foo" according to the standard. If you want to write portable applications you are
advised to always quote a particular name or never quote it.)

A variant of quoted identifiers allows including escaped Unicode characters identified by their
code points. This variant starts with U& (upper or lower case U followed by ampersand)
immediately before the opening double quote, without any spaces in between, for
example U&"foo". (Note that this creates an ambiguity with the operator &. Use spaces around
the operator to avoid this problem.) Inside the quotes, Unicode characters can be specified in
escaped form by writing a backslash followed by the four-digit hexadecimal code point number
or alternatively a backslash followed by a plus sign followed by a six-digit hexadecimal code
point number. For example, the identifier "data" could be written as

U&"d\0061t\+000061"

The following less trivial example writes the Russian word “slon” (elephant) in Cyrillic letters:

U&"\0441\043B\043E\043D"

If a different escape character than backslash is desired, it can be specified using

the UESCAPE clause after the string, for example:

U&"d!0061t!+000061" UESCAPE '!'

The escape character can be any single character other than a hexadecimal digit, the plus sign,
a single quote, a double quote, or a whitespace character. Note that the escape character is
written in single quotes, not double quotes, after UESCAPE.

To include the escape character in the identifier literally, write it twice.

Either the 4-digit or the 6-digit escape form can be used to specify UTF-16 surrogate pairs to
compose characters with code points larger than U+FFFF, although the availability of the 6-digit
form technically makes this unnecessary. (Surrogate pairs are not stored directly, but are
combined into a single code point.)
If the server encoding is not UTF-8, the Unicode code point identified by one of these escape
sequences is converted to the actual server encoding; an error is reported if that's not possible.

4.1.2. Constants
There are three kinds of implicitly-typed constants in PostgreSQL: strings, bit strings, and
numbers. Constants can also be specified with explicit types, which can enable more accurate
representation and more efficient handling by the system. These alternatives are discussed in
the following subsections.

[Link]. String Constants

A string constant in SQL is an arbitrary sequence of characters bounded by single quotes ('), for
example 'This is a string'. To include a single-quote character within a string constant, write two
adjacent single quotes, e.g., 'Dianne''s horse'. Note that this is not the same as a double-quote
character (").

Two string constants that are only separated by whitespace with at least one newline are
concatenated and effectively treated as if the string had been written as one constant. For
example:

SELECT 'foo'
'bar';

is equivalent to:

SELECT 'foobar';

but:

SELECT 'foo' 'bar';

is not valid syntax. (This slightly bizarre behavior is specified by SQL; PostgreSQL is following the
standard.)

[Link]. String Constants with C-Style Escapes

PostgreSQL also accepts “escape” string constants, which are an extension to the SQL standard.
An escape string constant is specified by writing the letter E (upper or lower case) just before the
opening single quote, e.g., E'foo'. (When continuing an escape string constant across lines,
write E only before the first opening quote.) Within an escape string, a backslash character ( \)
begins a C-like backslash escape sequence, in which the combination of backslash and following
character(s) represent a special byte value, as shown in Table 4.1.

Table 4.1. Backslash Escape Sequences

Backslash Escape
Sequence Interpretation
\b backspace
\f form feed
 Backslash Escape
Sequence Interpretation
\n newline
\r carriage return
\t tab
\o, \oo, \ooo (o = 0–7) octal byte value
\xh, \xhh (h = 0–9, A–F) hexadecimal byte value
\uxxxx, \Uxxxxxxxx (x = 0–9, 16 or 32-bit hexadecimal Unicode character
A–F) value

Any other character following a backslash is taken literally. Thus, to include a backslash
character, write two backslashes (\\). Also, a single quote can be included in an escape string by
writing \', in addition to the normal way of ''.

It is your responsibility that the byte sequences you create, especially when using the octal or
hexadecimal escapes, compose valid characters in the server character set encoding. A useful
alternative is to use Unicode escapes or the alternative Unicode escape syntax, explained
in Section [Link]; then the server will check that the character conversion is possible.

Caution
If the configuration parameter standard_conforming_strings is off, then PostgreSQL
recognizes backslash escapes in both regular and escape string constants. However, as
of PostgreSQL 9.1, the default is on, meaning that backslash escapes are recognized only in
escape string constants. This behavior is more standards-compliant, but might break
applications which rely on the historical behavior, where backslash escapes were always
recognized. As a workaround, you can set this parameter to off, but it is better to migrate away
from using backslash escapes. If you need to use a backslash escape to represent a special
character, write the string constant with an E.

In addition to standard_conforming_strings, the configuration parameters

escape_string_warning and backslash_quote govern treatment of backslashes in string
constants.

The character with the code zero cannot be in a string constant.

[Link]. String Constants with Unicode Escapes

PostgreSQL also supports another type of escape syntax for strings that allows specifying
arbitrary Unicode characters by code point. A Unicode escape string constant starts
with U& (upper or lower case letter U followed by ampersand) immediately before the opening
quote, without any spaces in between, for example U&'foo'. (Note that this creates an ambiguity
with the operator &. Use spaces around the operator to avoid this problem.) Inside the quotes,
Unicode characters can be specified in escaped form by writing a backslash followed by the four-
digit hexadecimal code point number or alternatively a backslash followed by a plus sign
followed by a six-digit hexadecimal code point number. For example, the string 'data' could be
written as

U&'d\0061t\+000061'

The following less trivial example writes the Russian word “slon” (elephant) in Cyrillic letters:

U&'\0441\043B\043E\043D'
If a different escape character than backslash is desired, it can be specified using
the UESCAPE clause after the string, for example:

U&'d!0061t!+000061' UESCAPE '!'

The escape character can be any single character other than a hexadecimal digit, the plus sign,
a single quote, a double quote, or a whitespace character.

To include the escape character in the string literally, write it twice.

Either the 4-digit or the 6-digit escape form can be used to specify UTF-16 surrogate pairs to
compose characters with code points larger than U+FFFF, although the availability of the 6-digit
form technically makes this unnecessary. (Surrogate pairs are not stored directly, but are
combined into a single code point.)
If the server encoding is not UTF-8, the Unicode code point identified by one of these escape
sequences is converted to the actual server encoding; an error is reported if that's not possible.

Also, the Unicode escape syntax for string constants only works when the configuration
parameter standard_conforming_strings is turned on. This is because otherwise this syntax
could confuse clients that parse the SQL statements to the point that it could lead to SQL
injections and similar security issues. If the parameter is set to off, this syntax will be rejected
with an error message.

[Link]. Dollar-Quoted String Constants

While the standard syntax for specifying string constants is usually convenient, it can be difficult
to understand when the desired string contains many single quotes, since each of those must be
doubled. To allow more readable queries in such situations, PostgreSQL provides another way,
called “dollar quoting”, to write string constants. A dollar-quoted string constant consists of a
dollar sign ($), an optional “tag” of zero or more characters, another dollar sign, an arbitrary
sequence of characters that makes up the string content, a dollar sign, the same tag that began
this dollar quote, and a dollar sign. For example, here are two different ways to specify the
string “Dianne's horse” using dollar quoting:

$$Dianne's horse$$
$SomeTag$Dianne's horse$SomeTag$

Notice that inside the dollar-quoted string, single quotes can be used without needing to be
escaped. Indeed, no characters inside a dollar-quoted string are ever escaped: the string content
is always written literally. Backslashes are not special, and neither are dollar signs, unless they
are part of a sequence matching the opening tag.

It is possible to nest dollar-quoted string constants by choosing different tags at each nesting
level. This is most commonly used in writing function definitions. For example:

$function$
BEGIN
RETURN ($1 ~ $q$[\t\r\n\v\\]$q$);
END;
$function$

Here, the sequence $q$[\t\r\n\v\\]$q$ represents a dollar-quoted literal string [\t\r\n\v\\], which
will be recognized when the function body is executed by PostgreSQL. But since the sequence
does not match the outer dollar quoting delimiter $function$, it is just some more characters
within the constant so far as the outer string is concerned.

The tag, if any, of a dollar-quoted string follows the same rules as an unquoted identifier, except
that it cannot contain a dollar sign. Tags are case sensitive, so $tag$String content$tag$ is
correct, but $TAG$String content$tag$ is not.
A dollar-quoted string that follows a keyword or identifier must be separated from it by
whitespace; otherwise, the dollar quoting delimiter would be taken as part of the preceding
identifier.

Dollar quoting is not part of the SQL standard, but it is often a more convenient way to write
complicated string literals than the standard-compliant single quote syntax. It is particularly
useful when representing string constants inside other constants, as is often needed in
procedural function definitions. With single-quote syntax, each backslash in the above example
would have to be written as four backslashes, which would be reduced to two backslashes in
parsing the original string constant, and then to one when the inner string constant is re-parsed
during function execution.

[Link]. Bit-String Constants

Bit-string constants look like regular string constants with a B (upper or lower case) immediately
before the opening quote (no intervening whitespace), e.g., B'1001'. The only characters allowed
within bit-string constants are 0 and 1.

Alternatively, bit-string constants can be specified in hexadecimal notation, using a

leading X (upper or lower case), e.g., X'1FF'. This notation is equivalent to a bit-string constant
with four binary digits for each hexadecimal digit.

Both forms of bit-string constant can be continued across lines in the same way as regular string
constants. Dollar quoting cannot be used in a bit-string constant.

[Link]. Numeric Constants

Numeric constants are accepted in these general forms:
digits
digits.[digits][e[+-]digits]
[digits].digits[e[+-]digits]
digitse[+-]digits

where digits is one or more decimal digits (0 through 9). At least one digit must be before or
after the decimal point, if one is used. At least one digit must follow the exponent marker (e), if
one is present. There cannot be any spaces or other characters embedded in the constant,
except for underscores, which can be used for visual grouping as described below. Note that any
leading plus or minus sign is not actually considered part of the constant; it is an operator
applied to the constant.

These are some examples of valid numeric constants:

42
3.5
4.
.001
5e2
1.925e-3

Additionally, non-decimal integer constants are accepted in these forms:

0xhexdigits
0ooctdigits
0bbindigits

where hexdigits is one or more hexadecimal digits (0-9, A-F), octdigits is one or more octal
digits (0-7), and bindigits is one or more binary digits (0 or 1). Hexadecimal digits and the radix
prefixes can be in upper or lower case. Note that only integers can have non-decimal forms, not
numbers with fractional parts.
These are some examples of valid non-decimal integer constants:

0b100101
0B10011001
0o273
0O755
0x42f
0XFFFF

For visual grouping, underscores can be inserted between digits. These have no further effect on
the value of the constant. For example:

1_500_000_000
0b10001000_00000000
0o_1_755
0xFFFF_FFFF
1.618_034

Underscores are not allowed at the start or end of a numeric constant or a group of digits (that
is, immediately before or after the decimal point or the exponent marker), and more than one
underscore in a row is not allowed.

A numeric constant that contains neither a decimal point nor an exponent is initially presumed to
be type integer if its value fits in type integer (32 bits); otherwise, it is presumed to be
type bigint if its value fits in type bigint (64 bits); otherwise, it is taken to be type numeric.
Constants that contain decimal points and/or exponents are always initially presumed to be
type numeric.

The initially assigned data type of a numeric constant is just a starting point for the type
resolution algorithms. In most cases the constant will be automatically coerced to the most
appropriate type depending on context. When necessary, you can force a numeric value to be
interpreted as a specific data type by casting it. For example, you can force a numeric value to
be treated as type real (float4) by writing:

REAL '1.23' -- string style

1.23::REAL -- PostgreSQL (historical) style

These are actually just special cases of the general casting notations discussed next.

[Link]. Constants of Other Types

A constant of an arbitrary type can be entered using any one of the following notations:

type 'string'
'string'::type
CAST ( 'string' AS type )

The string constant's text is passed to the input conversion routine for the type called type. The
result is a constant of the indicated type. The explicit type cast can be omitted if there is no
ambiguity as to the type the constant must be (for example, when it is assigned directly to a
table column), in which case it is automatically coerced.

The string constant can be written using either regular SQL notation or dollar-quoting.

It is also possible to specify a type coercion using a function-like syntax:

typename ( 'string' )

but not all type names can be used in this way; see Section 4.2.9 for details.
The ::, CAST(), and function-call syntaxes can also be used to specify run-time type conversions
of arbitrary expressions, as discussed in Section 4.2.9. To avoid syntactic ambiguity, the
type 'string' syntax can only be used to specify the type of a simple literal constant. Another
restriction on the type 'string' syntax is that it does not work for array types; use :: or CAST() to
specify the type of an array constant.

The CAST() syntax conforms to SQL. The type 'string' syntax is a generalization of the standard:
SQL specifies this syntax only for a few data types, but PostgreSQL allows it for all types. The
syntax with :: is historical PostgreSQL usage, as is the function-call syntax.

4.1.3. Operators
An operator name is a sequence of up to NAMEDATALEN-1 (63 by default) characters from the
following list:

+-*/<>=~!@#%^&|`?

There are a few restrictions on operator names, however:

 -- and /* cannot appear anywhere in an operator name, since they will be taken as the
start of a comment.
 A multiple-character operator name cannot end in + or -, unless the name also contains at
least one of these characters:

~!@#%^&|`?
For example, @- is an allowed operator name, but *- is not. This restriction
allows PostgreSQL to parse SQL-compliant queries without requiring spaces between
tokens.

When working with non-SQL-standard operator names, you will usually need to separate adjacent
operators with spaces to avoid ambiguity. For example, if you have defined a prefix operator
named @, you cannot write X*@Y; you must write X* @Y to ensure that PostgreSQL reads it as
two operator names not one.

4.1.4. Special Characters

Some characters that are not alphanumeric have a special meaning that is different from being
an operator. Details on the usage can be found at the location where the respective syntax
element is described. This section only exists to advise the existence and summarize the
purposes of these characters.
 A dollar sign ($) followed by digits is used to represent a positional parameter in the body
of a function definition or a prepared statement. In other contexts the dollar sign can be
part of an identifier or a dollar-quoted string constant.
 Parentheses (()) have their usual meaning to group expressions and enforce precedence.
In some cases parentheses are required as part of the fixed syntax of a particular SQL
command.
 Brackets ([]) are used to select the elements of an array. See Section 8.15 for more
information on arrays.
 Commas (,) are used in some syntactical constructs to separate the elements of a list.
 The semicolon (;) terminates an SQL command. It cannot appear anywhere within a
command, except within a string constant or quoted identifier.
 The colon (:) is used to select “slices” from arrays. (See Section 8.15.) In certain SQL
dialects (such as Embedded SQL), the colon is used to prefix variable names.
 The asterisk (*) is used in some contexts to denote all the fields of a table row or
composite value. It also has a special meaning when used as the argument of an
aggregate function, namely that the aggregate does not require any explicit parameter.
 The period (.) is used in numeric constants, and to separate schema, table, and column
names.
4.1.5. Comments
A comment is a sequence of characters beginning with double dashes and extending to the end
of the line, e.g.:

-- This is a standard SQL comment

Alternatively, C-style block comments can be used:

/* multiline comment
* with nesting: /* nested block comment */
*/

where the comment begins with /* and extends to the matching occurrence of */. These block
comments nest, as specified in the SQL standard but unlike C, so that one can comment out
larger blocks of code that might contain existing block comments.

A comment is removed from the input stream before further syntax analysis and is effectively
replaced by whitespace.

4.1.6. Operator Precedence

Table 4.2 shows the precedence and associativity of the operators in PostgreSQL. Most
operators have the same precedence and are left-associative. The precedence and associativity
of the operators is hard-wired into the parser. Add parentheses if you want an expression with
multiple operators to be parsed in some other way than what the precedence rules imply.

Table 4.2. Operator Precedence (highest to lowest)

Associativi
Operator/Element ty Description
. left table/column name separator
:: left PostgreSQL-style typecast
[] left array element selection
+- right unary plus, unary minus
COLLATE left collation selection
AT left AT TIME ZONE, AT LOCAL
^ left exponentiation
*/% left multiplication, division, modulo
+- left addition, subtraction
(any other operator) left all other native and user-defined operators
BETWEEN IN LIKE ILIKE SIMIL range containment, set membership, string
AR matching
< > = <= >= <> comparison operators
IS ISNULL NOTNULL IS TRUE, IS FALSE, IS NULL, IS DISTINCT FROM, etc.
NOT right logical negation
AND left logical conjunction
OR left logical disjunction
Note that the operator precedence rules also apply to user-defined operators that have the same
names as the built-in operators mentioned above. For example, if you define a “+” operator for
some custom data type it will have the same precedence as the built-in “+” operator, no matter
what yours does.

When a schema-qualified operator name is used in the OPERATOR syntax, as for example in:

SELECT 3 OPERATOR(pg_catalog.+) 4;

the OPERATOR construct is taken to have the default precedence shown in Table 4.2 for “any
other operator”. This is true no matter which specific operator appears inside OPERATOR().

Note
PostgreSQL versions before 9.5 used slightly different operator precedence rules. In particular,
<= >= and <> used to be treated as generic operators; IS tests used to have higher priority;
and NOT BETWEEN and related constructs acted inconsistently, being taken in some cases as
having the precedence of NOT rather than BETWEEN. These rules were changed for better
compliance with the SQL standard and to reduce confusion from inconsistent treatment of
logically equivalent constructs. In most cases, these changes will result in no behavioral
change, or perhaps in “no such operator” failures which can be resolved by adding
parentheses. However, there are corner cases in which a query might change behavior without
any parsing error being reported.

4.2. Value Expressions

Value expressions are used in a variety of contexts, such as in the target list of
the SELECT command, as new column values in INSERT or UPDATE, or in search conditions in a
number of commands. The result of a value expression is sometimes called a scalar, to
distinguish it from the result of a table expression (which is a table). Value expressions are
therefore also called scalar expressions (or even simply expressions). The expression syntax
allows the calculation of values from primitive parts using arithmetic, logical, set, and other
operations.

A value expression is one of the following:

 A constant or literal value
 A column reference
 A positional parameter reference, in the body of a function definition or prepared
statement
 A subscripted expression
 A field selection expression
 An operator invocation
 A function call
 An aggregate expression
 A window function call
 A type cast
 A collation expression
 A scalar subquery
 An array constructor
 A row constructor
 Another value expression in parentheses (used to group subexpressions and override
precedence)

In addition to this list, there are a number of constructs that can be classified as an expression
but do not follow any general syntax rules. These generally have the semantics of a function or
operator and are explained in the appropriate location in Chapter 9. An example is the IS
NULL clause.
We have already discussed constants in Section 4.1.2. The following sections discuss the
remaining options.

4.2.1. Column References

A column can be referenced in the form:

[Link]

correlation is the name of a table (possibly qualified with a schema name), or an alias for a
table defined by means of a FROM clause. The correlation name and separating dot can be
omitted if the column name is unique across all the tables being used in the current query. (See
also Chapter 7.)

4.2.2. Positional Parameters

A positional parameter reference is used to indicate a value that is supplied externally to an SQL
statement. Parameters are used in SQL function definitions and in prepared queries. Some client
libraries also support specifying data values separately from the SQL command string, in which
case parameters are used to refer to the out-of-line data values. The form of a parameter
reference is:

$number

For example, consider the definition of a function, dept, as:

CREATE FUNCTION dept(text) RETURNS dept

AS $$ SELECT * FROM dept WHERE name = $1 $$
LANGUAGE SQL;

Here the $1 references the value of the first function argument whenever the function is invoked.

4.2.3. Subscripts
If an expression yields a value of an array type, then a specific element of the array value can be
extracted by writing

expression[subscript]

or multiple adjacent elements (an “array slice”) can be extracted by writing

expression[lower_subscript:upper_subscript]

(Here, the brackets [ ] are meant to appear literally.) Each subscript is itself an expression,
which will be rounded to the nearest integer value.

In general, the array expression must be parenthesized, but the parentheses can be omitted
when the expression to be subscripted is just a column reference or positional parameter. Also,
multiple subscripts can be concatenated when the original array is multidimensional. For
example:

[Link][4]
mytable.two_d_column[17][34]
$1[10:42]
(arrayfunction(a,b))[42]

The parentheses in the last example are required. See Section 8.15 for more about arrays.

4.2.4. Field Selection

If an expression yields a value of a composite type (row type), then a specific field of the row can
be extracted by writing
[Link]

In general, the row expression must be parenthesized, but the parentheses can be omitted
when the expression to be selected from is just a table reference or positional parameter. For
example:

[Link]
$[Link]
(rowfunction(a,b)).col3

(Thus, a qualified column reference is actually just a special case of the field selection syntax.)
An important special case is extracting a field from a table column that is of a composite type:

(compositecol).somefield
([Link]).somefield

The parentheses are required here to show that compositecol is a column name not a table
name, or that mytable is a table name not a schema name in the second case.

You can ask for all fields of a composite value by writing .*:

(compositecol).*

This notation behaves differently depending on context; see Section 8.16.5 for details.

4.2.5. Operator Invocations

There are two possible syntaxes for an operator invocation:

expression operator expression (binary infix

operator)
operator expression (unary prefix operator)

where the operator token follows the syntax rules of Section 4.1.3, or is one of the key
words AND, OR, and NOT, or is a qualified operator name in the form:

OPERATOR([Link])

Which particular operators exist and whether they are unary or binary depends on what
operators have been defined by the system or the user. Chapter 9 describes the built-in
operators.

4.2.6. Function Calls

The syntax for a function call is the name of a function (possibly qualified with a schema name),
followed by its argument list enclosed in parentheses:

function_name ([expression [, expression ... ]] )

For example, the following computes the square root of 2:

sqrt(2)

The list of built-in functions is in Chapter 9. Other functions can be added by the user.

When issuing queries in a database where some users mistrust other users, observe security
precautions from Section 10.3 when writing function calls.

The arguments can optionally have names attached. See Section 4.3 for details.
 Note
A function that takes a single argument of composite type can optionally be called using field-
selection syntax, and conversely field selection can be written in functional style. That is, the
notations col(table) and [Link] are interchangeable. This behavior is not SQL-standard but is
provided in PostgreSQL because it allows use of functions to emulate “computed fields”. For
more information see Section 8.16.5.

4.2.7. Aggregate Expressions

An aggregate expression represents the application of an aggregate function across the rows
selected by a query. An aggregate function reduces multiple inputs to a single output value, such
as the sum or average of the inputs. The syntax of an aggregate expression is one of the
following:

aggregate_name (expresión [ , ... ] [ order_by_clause ] ) [ FILTRO ( DONDE filter_clause ) ]

aggregate_name (TODAS las expresiones [ , ... ] [ order_by_clause ] ) [ FILTRO ( DONDE
filter_clause ) ]
aggregate_name (expresión DISTINTA [ , ... ] [ order_by_clause ] ) [ FILTRO ( DONDE
filter_clause ) ]
aggregate_name ( * ) [ FILTRO ( DONDE filter_clause ) ]
aggregate_name ( [ expresión [ , ... ] ] ) DENTRO DEL GRUPO ( order_by_clause ) [ FILTRO
( DONDE filter_clause ) ]

where aggregate_name is a previously defined aggregate (possibly qualified with a schema

name) and expression is any value expression that does not itself contain an aggregate
expression or a window function call. The optional order_by_clause and filter_clause are
described below.

The first form of aggregate expression invokes the aggregate once for each input row. The
second form is the same as the first, since ALL is the default. The third form invokes the
aggregate once for each distinct value of the expression (or distinct set of values, for multiple
expressions) found in the input rows. The fourth form invokes the aggregate once for each input
row; since no particular input value is specified, it is generally only useful for
the count(*) aggregate function. The last form is used with ordered-set aggregate functions,
which are described below.

Most aggregate functions ignore null inputs, so that rows in which one or more of the
expression(s) yield null are discarded. This can be assumed to be true, unless otherwise
specified, for all built-in aggregates.
For example, count(*) yields the total number of input rows; count(f1) yields the number of input
rows in which f1 is non-null, since count ignores nulls; and count(distinct f1) yields the number of
distinct non-null values of f1.

Ordinarily, the input rows are fed to the aggregate function in an unspecified order. In many
cases this does not matter; for example, min produces the same result no matter what order it
receives the inputs in. However, some aggregate functions (such as array_agg and string_agg)
produce results that depend on the ordering of the input rows. When using such an aggregate,
the optional order_by_clause can be used to specify the desired ordering.
The order_by_clause has the same syntax as for a query-level ORDER BY clause, as described
in Section 7.5, except that its expressions are always just expressions and cannot be output-
column names or numbers. For example:

WITH vals (v) AS ( VALUES (1),(3),(4),(3),(2) )

SELECT array_agg(v ORDER BY v DESC) FROM vals;
array_agg
-------------
{4,3,3,2,1}
Since jsonb only keeps the last matching key, ordering of its keys can be significant:

WITH vals (k, v) AS ( VALUES ('key0','1'), ('key1','3'), ('key1','2') )

SELECT jsonb_object_agg(k, v ORDER BY v) FROM vals;
jsonb_object_agg
----------------------------
{"key0": "1", "key1": "3"}

When dealing with multiple-argument aggregate functions, note that the ORDER BY clause goes
after all the aggregate arguments. For example, write this:

SELECT string_agg(a, ',' ORDER BY a) FROM table;

not this:

SELECT string_agg(a ORDER BY a, ',') FROM table; -- incorrect

The latter is syntactically valid, but it represents a call of a single-argument aggregate function
with two ORDER BY keys (the second one being rather useless since it's a constant).

If DISTINCT is specified with an order_by_clause, ORDER BY expressions can only reference

columns in the DISTINCT list. For example:

WITH vals (v) AS ( VALUES (1),(3),(4),(3),(2) )

SELECT array_agg(DISTINCT v ORDER BY v DESC) FROM vals;
array_agg
-----------
{4,3,2,1}

Placing ORDER BY within the aggregate's regular argument list, as described so far, is used when
ordering the input rows for general-purpose and statistical aggregates, for which ordering is
optional. There is a subclass of aggregate functions called ordered-set aggregates for which
an order_by_clause is required, usually because the aggregate's computation is only sensible in
terms of a specific ordering of its input rows. Typical examples of ordered-set aggregates include
rank and percentile calculations. For an ordered-set aggregate, the order_by_clause is written
inside WITHIN GROUP (...), as shown in the final syntax alternative above. The expressions in
the order_by_clause are evaluated once per input row just like regular aggregate arguments,
sorted as per the order_by_clause's requirements, and fed to the aggregate function as input
arguments. (This is unlike the case for a non-WITHIN GROUP order_by_clause, which is not
treated as argument(s) to the aggregate function.) The argument expressions preceding WITHIN
GROUP, if any, are called direct arguments to distinguish them from the aggregated
arguments listed in the order_by_clause. Unlike regular aggregate arguments, direct
arguments are evaluated only once per aggregate call, not once per input row. This means that
they can contain variables only if those variables are grouped by GROUP BY; this restriction is
the same as if the direct arguments were not inside an aggregate expression at all. Direct
arguments are typically used for things like percentile fractions, which only make sense as a
single value per aggregation calculation. The direct argument list can be empty; in this case,
write just () not (*). (PostgreSQL will actually accept either spelling, but only the first way
conforms to the SQL standard.)

An example of an ordered-set aggregate call is:

SELECT percentile_cont(0.5) WITHIN GROUP (ORDER BY income) FROM households;

percentile_cont
-----------------
50489
which obtains the 50th percentile, or median, value of the income column from table households.
Here, 0.5 is a direct argument; it would make no sense for the percentile fraction to be a value
varying across rows.

If FILTER is specified, then only the input rows for which the filter_clause evaluates to true are
fed to the aggregate function; other rows are discarded. For example:

SELECT
count(*) AS unfiltered,
count(*) FILTER (WHERE i < 5) AS filtered
FROM generate_series(1,10) AS s(i);
unfiltered | filtered
------------+----------
10 | 4
(1 row)

The predefined aggregate functions are described in Section 9.21. Other aggregate functions
can be added by the user.

An aggregate expression can only appear in the result list or HAVING clause of
a SELECT command. It is forbidden in other clauses, such as WHERE, because those clauses are
logically evaluated before the results of aggregates are formed.

When an aggregate expression appears in a subquery (see Section 4.2.11 and Section 9.24),
the aggregate is normally evaluated over the rows of the subquery. But an exception occurs if
the aggregate's arguments (and filter_clause if any) contain only outer-level variables: the
aggregate then belongs to the nearest such outer level, and is evaluated over the rows of that
query. The aggregate expression as a whole is then an outer reference for the subquery it
appears in, and acts as a constant over any one evaluation of that subquery. The restriction
about appearing only in the result list or HAVING clause applies with respect to the query level
that the aggregate belongs to.

4.2.8. Window Function Calls

A window function call represents the application of an aggregate-like function over some portion
of the rows selected by a query. Unlike non-window aggregate calls, this is not tied to grouping
of the selected rows into a single output row — each row remains separate in the query output.
However, the window function has access to all the rows that would be part of the current row's
group according to the grouping specification (PARTITION BY list) of the window function call. The
syntax of a window function call is one of the following:

function_name ([expression [, expression ... ]]) [ FILTER ( WHERE filter_clause ) ] OVER

window_name
function_name ([expression [, expression ... ]]) [ FILTER ( WHERE filter_clause ) ] OVER (
window_definition )
function_name ( * ) [ FILTER ( WHERE filter_clause ) ] OVER window_name
function_name ( * ) [ FILTER ( WHERE filter_clause ) ] OVER ( window_definition )

where window_definition has the syntax

[ existing_window_name ]
[ PARTITION BY expression [, ...] ]
[ ORDER BY expression [ ASC | DESC | USING operator ] [ NULLS { FIRST | LAST } ] [, ...] ]
[ frame_clause ]

The optional frame_clause can be one of

{ RANGE | ROWS | GROUPS } frame_start [ frame_exclusion ]

{ RANGE | ROWS | GROUPS } BETWEEN frame_start AND frame_end [ frame_exclusion ]
where frame_start and frame_end can be one of

UNBOUNDED PRECEDING
offset PRECEDING
CURRENT ROW
offset FOLLOWING
UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING

and frame_exclusion can be one of

EXCLUDE CURRENT ROW

EXCLUDE GROUP
EXCLUDE TIES
EXCLUDE NO OTHERS

Here, expression represents any value expression that does not itself contain window function
calls.

window_name is a reference to a named window specification defined in the

query's WINDOW clause. Alternatively, a full window_definition can be given within
parentheses, using the same syntax as for defining a named window in the WINDOW clause; see
the SELECT reference page for details. It's worth pointing out that OVER wname is not exactly
equivalent to OVER (wname ...); the latter implies copying and modifying the window definition,
and will be rejected if the referenced window specification includes a frame clause.

The PARTITION BY clause groups the rows of the query into partitions, which are processed
separately by the window function. PARTITION BY works similarly to a query-level GROUP
BY clause, except that its expressions are always just expressions and cannot be output-column
names or numbers. Without PARTITION BY, all rows produced by the query are treated as a
single partition. The ORDER BY clause determines the order in which the rows of a partition are
processed by the window function. It works similarly to a query-level ORDER BY clause, but
likewise cannot use output-column names or numbers. Without ORDER BY, rows are processed in
an unspecified order.

The frame_clause specifies the set of rows constituting the window frame, which is a subset of
the current partition, for those window functions that act on the frame instead of the whole
partition. The set of rows in the frame can vary depending on which row is the current row. The
frame can be specified in RANGE, ROWS or GROUPS mode; in each case, it runs from
the frame_start to the frame_end. If frame_end is omitted, the end defaults to CURRENT
ROW.

A frame_start of UNBOUNDED PRECEDING means that the frame starts with the first row of the
partition, and similarly a frame_end of UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING means that the frame ends
with the last row of the partition.

In RANGE or GROUPS mode, a frame_start of CURRENT ROW means the frame starts with the
current row's first peer row (a row that the window's ORDER BY clause sorts as equivalent to the
current row), while a frame_end of CURRENT ROW means the frame ends with the current row's
last peer row. In ROWS mode, CURRENT ROW simply means the current row.

In the offset PRECEDING and offset FOLLOWING frame options, the offset must be an
expression not containing any variables, aggregate functions, or window functions. The meaning
of the offset depends on the frame mode:
 In ROWS mode, the offset must yield a non-null, non-negative integer, and the option
means that the frame starts or ends the specified number of rows before or after the
current row.
 In GROUPS mode, the offset again must yield a non-null, non-negative integer, and the
option means that the frame starts or ends the specified number of peer groups before or
 after the current row's peer group, where a peer group is a set of rows that are equivalent
in the ORDER BY ordering. (There must be an ORDER BY clause in the window definition to
use GROUPS mode.)
 In RANGE mode, these options require that the ORDER BY clause specify exactly one
column. The offset specifies the maximum difference between the value of that column in
the current row and its value in preceding or following rows of the frame. The data type of
the offset expression varies depending on the data type of the ordering column. For
numeric ordering columns it is typically of the same type as the ordering column, but for
datetime ordering columns it is an interval. For example, if the ordering column is of
type date or timestamp, one could write RANGE BETWEEN '1 day' PRECEDING AND '10
days' FOLLOWING. The offset is still required to be non-null and non-negative, though the
meaning of “non-negative” depends on its data type.

In any case, the distance to the end of the frame is limited by the distance to the end of the
partition, so that for rows near the partition ends the frame might contain fewer rows than
elsewhere.
Notice that in both ROWS and GROUPS mode, 0 PRECEDING and 0 FOLLOWING are equivalent
to CURRENT ROW. This normally holds in RANGE mode as well, for an appropriate data-type-
specific meaning of “zero”.

The frame_exclusion option allows rows around the current row to be excluded from the frame,
even if they would be included according to the frame start and frame end options. EXCLUDE
CURRENT ROW excludes the current row from the frame. EXCLUDE GROUP excludes the current
row and its ordering peers from the frame. EXCLUDE TIES excludes any peers of the current row
from the frame, but not the current row itself. EXCLUDE NO OTHERS simply specifies explicitly
the default behavior of not excluding the current row or its peers.

The default framing option is RANGE UNBOUNDED PRECEDING, which is the same as RANGE
BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND CURRENT ROW. With ORDER BY, this sets the frame to
be all rows from the partition start up through the current row's last ORDER BY peer.
Without ORDER BY, this means all rows of the partition are included in the window frame, since
all rows become peers of the current row.

Restrictions are that frame_start cannot be UNBOUNDED FOLLOWING, frame_end cannot be

UNBOUNDED PRECEDING, and the frame_end choice cannot appear earlier in the above list
of frame_start and frame_end options than the frame_start choice does — for
example RANGE BETWEEN CURRENT ROW AND offset PRECEDING is not allowed. But, for
example, ROWS BETWEEN 7 PRECEDING AND 8 PRECEDING is allowed, even though it would
never select any rows.

If FILTER is specified, then only the input rows for which the filter_clause evaluates to true are
fed to the window function; other rows are discarded. Only window functions that are aggregates
accept a FILTER clause.

The built-in window functions are described in Table 9.65. Other window functions can be added
by the user. Also, any built-in or user-defined general-purpose or statistical aggregate can be
used as a window function. (Ordered-set and hypothetical-set aggregates cannot presently be
used as window functions.)

The syntaxes using * are used for calling parameter-less aggregate functions as window
functions, for example count(*) OVER (PARTITION BY x ORDER BY y). The asterisk (*) is
customarily not used for window-specific functions. Window-specific functions do not
allow DISTINCT or ORDER BY to be used within the function argument list.

Window function calls are permitted only in the SELECT list and the ORDER BY clause of the
query.
More information about window functions can be found in Section 3.5, Section 9.22,
and Section 7.2.5.

4.2.9. Type Casts

A type cast specifies a conversion from one data type to another. PostgreSQL accepts two
equivalent syntaxes for type casts:

CAST ( expression AS type )

expression::type

The CAST syntax conforms to SQL; the syntax with :: is historical PostgreSQL usage.

When a cast is applied to a value expression of a known type, it represents a run-time type
conversion. The cast will succeed only if a suitable type conversion operation has been defined.
Notice that this is subtly different from the use of casts with constants, as shown
in Section [Link]. A cast applied to an unadorned string literal represents the initial
assignment of a type to a literal constant value, and so it will succeed for any type (if the
contents of the string literal are acceptable input syntax for the data type).

An explicit type cast can usually be omitted if there is no ambiguity as to the type that a value
expression must produce (for example, when it is assigned to a table column); the system will
automatically apply a type cast in such cases. However, automatic casting is only done for casts
that are marked “OK to apply implicitly” in the system catalogs. Other casts must be invoked
with explicit casting syntax. This restriction is intended to prevent surprising conversions from
being applied silently.

It is also possible to specify a type cast using a function-like syntax:

typename ( expression )

However, this only works for types whose names are also valid as function names. For
example, double precision cannot be used this way, but the equivalent float8 can. Also, the
names interval, time, and timestamp can only be used in this fashion if they are double-quoted,
because of syntactic conflicts. Therefore, the use of the function-like cast syntax leads to
inconsistencies and should probably be avoided.

Note
The function-like syntax is in fact just a function call. When one of the two standard cast
syntaxes is used to do a run-time conversion, it will internally invoke a registered function to
perform the conversion. By convention, these conversion functions have the same name as
their output type, and thus the “function-like syntax” is nothing more than a direct invocation
of the underlying conversion function. Obviously, this is not something that a portable
application should rely on. For further details see CREATE CAST.

4.2.10. Collation Expressions

The COLLATE clause overrides the collation of an expression. It is appended to the expression it
applies to:

expr COLLATE snack

where collation is a possibly schema-qualified identifier. The COLLATE clause binds tighter than
operators; parentheses can be used when necessary.

If no collation is explicitly specified, the database system either derives a collation from the
columns involved in the expression, or it defaults to the default collation of the database if no
column is involved in the expression.
The two common uses of the COLLATE clause are overriding the sort order in an ORDER
BY clause, for example:

SELECT a, b, c FROM tbl WHERE ... ORDER BY a COLLATE "C";

and overriding the collation of a function or operator call that has locale-sensitive results, for
example:

SELECT * FROM tbl WHERE a > 'foo' COLLATE "C";

Note that in the latter case the COLLATE clause is attached to an input argument of the operator
we wish to affect. It doesn't matter which argument of the operator or function call
the COLLATE clause is attached to, because the collation that is applied by the operator or
function is derived by considering all arguments, and an explicit COLLATE clause will override the
collations of all other arguments. (Attaching non-matching COLLATE clauses to more than one
argument, however, is an error. For more details see Section 23.2.) Thus, this gives the same
result as the previous example:

SELECT * FROM tbl WHERE a COLLATE "C" > 'foo';

But this is an error:

SELECT * FROM tbl WHERE (a > 'foo') COLLATE "C";

because it attempts to apply a collation to the result of the > operator, which is of the non-
collatable data type boolean.

4.2.11. Scalar Subqueries

A scalar subquery is an ordinary SELECT query in parentheses that returns exactly one row with
one column. (See Chapter 7 for information about writing queries.) The SELECT query is
executed and the single returned value is used in the surrounding value expression. It is an error
to use a query that returns more than one row or more than one column as a scalar subquery.
(But if, during a particular execution, the subquery returns no rows, there is no error; the scalar
result is taken to be null.) The subquery can refer to variables from the surrounding query, which
will act as constants during any one evaluation of the subquery. See also Section 9.24 for other
expressions involving subqueries.

For example, the following finds the largest city population in each state:

SELECT name, (SELECT max(pop) FROM cities WHERE [Link] = [Link])

FROM states;

4.2.12. Array Constructors

An array constructor is an expression that builds an array value using values for its member
elements. A simple array constructor consists of the key word ARRAY, a left square bracket [, a
list of expressions (separated by commas) for the array element values, and finally a right
square bracket ]. For example:

SELECT ARRAY[1,2,3+4];
array
---------
{1,2,7}
(1 row)

By default, the array element type is the common type of the member expressions, determined
using the same rules as for UNION or CASE constructs (see Section 10.5). You can override this
by explicitly casting the array constructor to the desired type, for example:
SELECT ARRAY[1,2,22.7]::integer[];
array
----------
{1,2,23}
(1 row)

This has the same effect as casting each expression to the array element type individually. For
more on casting, see Section 4.2.9.

Multidimensional array values can be built by nesting array constructors. In the inner
constructors, the key word ARRAY can be omitted. For example, these produce the same result:

SELECT ARRAY[ARRAY[1,2], ARRAY[3,4]];

array
---------------
{{1,2},{3,4}}
(1 row)

SELECT ARRAY[[1,2],[3,4]];
array
---------------
{{1,2},{3,4}}
(1 row)

Since multidimensional arrays must be rectangular, inner constructors at the same level must
produce sub-arrays of identical dimensions. Any cast applied to the outer ARRAY constructor
propagates automatically to all the inner constructors.

Multidimensional array constructor elements can be anything yielding an array of the proper
kind, not only a sub-ARRAY construct. For example:

CREATE TABLE arr(f1 int[], f2 int[]);

INSERT INTO arr VALUES (ARRAY[[1,2],[3,4]], ARRAY[[5,6],[7,8]]);

SELECT ARRAY[f1, f2, '{{9,10},{11,12}}'::int[]] FROM arr;

array
------------------------------------------------
{{{1,2},{3,4}},{{5,6},{7,8}},{{9,10},{11,12}}}
(1 row)

You can construct an empty array, but since it's impossible to have an array with no type, you
must explicitly cast your empty array to the desired type. For example:

SELECT ARRAY[]::integer[];
array
-------
{}
(1 row)

It is also possible to construct an array from the results of a subquery. In this form, the array
constructor is written with the key word ARRAY followed by a parenthesized (not bracketed)
subquery. For example:

SELECT ARRAY(SELECT oid FROM pg_proc WHERE proname LIKE 'bytea%');

array
------------------------------------------------------------------
{2011,1954,1948,1952,1951,1244,1950,2005,1949,1953,2006,31,2412}
(1 row)

SELECT ARRAY(SELECT ARRAY[i, i*2] FROM generate_series(1,5) AS a(i));

array
----------------------------------
{{1,2},{2,4},{3,6},{4,8},{5,10}}
(1 row)

The subquery must return a single column. If the subquery's output column is of a non-array
type, the resulting one-dimensional array will have an element for each row in the subquery
result, with an element type matching that of the subquery's output column. If the subquery's
output column is of an array type, the result will be an array of the same type but one higher
dimension; in this case all the subquery rows must yield arrays of identical dimensionality, else
the result would not be rectangular.

The subscripts of an array value built with ARRAY always begin with one. For more information
about arrays, see Section 8.15.

4.2.13. Row Constructors

A row constructor is an expression that builds a row value (also called a composite value) using
values for its member fields. A row constructor consists of the key word ROW, a left parenthesis,
zero or more expressions (separated by commas) for the row field values, and finally a right
parenthesis. For example:

SELECT ROW(1,2.5,'this is a test');

The key word ROW is optional when there is more than one expression in the list.

A row constructor can include the syntax rowvalue.*, which will be expanded to a list of the
elements of the row value, just as occurs when the .* syntax is used at the top level of
a SELECT list (see Section 8.16.5). For example, if table t has columns f1 and f2, these are the
same:

SELECT ROW(t.*, 42) FROM t;

SELECT ROW(t.f1, t.f2, 42) FROM t;

Note
Before PostgreSQL 8.2, the .* syntax was not expanded in row constructors, so that
writing ROW(t.*, 42) created a two-field row whose first field was another row value. The new
behavior is usually more useful. If you need the old behavior of nested row values, write the
inner row value without .*, for instance ROW(t, 42).

By default, the value created by a ROW expression is of an anonymous record type. If necessary,
it can be cast to a named composite type — either the row type of a table, or a composite type
created with CREATE TYPE AS. An explicit cast might be needed to avoid ambiguity. For example:

CREATE TABLE mytable(f1 int, f2 float, f3 text);

CREATE FUNCTION getf1(mytable) RETURNS int AS 'SELECT $1.f1' LANGUAGE SQL;

-- No cast needed since only one getf1() exists

SELECT getf1(ROW(1,2.5,'this is a test'));
getf1
-------
1
(1 row)
CREATE TYPE myrowtype AS (f1 int, f2 text, f3 numeric);

CREATE FUNCTION getf1(myrowtype) RETURNS int AS 'SELECT $1.f1' LANGUAGE SQL;

-- Now we need a cast to indicate which function to call:

SELECT getf1(ROW(1,2.5,'this is a test'));
ERROR: function getf1(record) is not unique

SELECT getf1(ROW(1,2.5,'this is a test')::mytable);

getf1
-------
1
(1 row)

SELECT getf1(CAST(ROW(11,'this is a test',2.5) AS myrowtype));

getf1
-------
11
(1 row)

Row constructors can be used to build composite values to be stored in a composite-type table
column, or to be passed to a function that accepts a composite parameter. Also, it is possible to
test rows using the standard comparison operators as described in Section 9.2, to compare one
row against another as described in Section 9.25, and to use them in connection with
subqueries, as discussed in Section 9.24,

4.2.14. Expression Evaluation Rules

The order of evaluation of subexpressions is not defined. In particular, the inputs of an operator
or function are not necessarily evaluated left-to-right or in any other fixed order.

Furthermore, if the result of an expression can be determined by evaluating only some parts of
it, then other subexpressions might not be evaluated at all. For instance, if one wrote:

SELECT true OR somefunc();

then somefunc() would (probably) not be called at all. The same would be the case if one wrote:

SELECT somefunc() OR true;

Note that this is not the same as the left-to-right “short-circuiting” of Boolean operators that is
found in some programming languages.

As a consequence, it is unwise to use functions with side effects as part of complex expressions.
It is particularly dangerous to rely on side effects or evaluation order
in WHERE and HAVING clauses, since those clauses are extensively reprocessed as part of
developing an execution plan. Boolean expressions (AND/OR/NOT combinations) in those clauses
can be reorganized in any manner allowed by the laws of Boolean algebra.

When it is essential to force evaluation order, a CASE construct (see Section 9.18) can be used.
For example, this is an untrustworthy way of trying to avoid division by zero in a WHERE clause:

SELECT ... WHERE x > 0 AND y/x > 1.5;

But this is safe:

SELECT ... WHERE CASE WHEN x > 0 THEN y/x > 1.5 ELSE false END;
A CASE construct used in this fashion will defeat optimization attempts, so it should only be done
when necessary. (In this particular example, it would be better to sidestep the problem by
writing y > 1.5*x instead.)

CASE is not a cure-all for such issues, however. One limitation of the technique illustrated above
is that it does not prevent early evaluation of constant subexpressions. As described
in Section 36.7, functions and operators marked IMMUTABLE can be evaluated when the query
is planned rather than when it is executed. Thus for example

SELECT CASE WHEN x > 0 THEN x ELSE 1/0 END FROM tab;

is likely to result in a division-by-zero failure due to the planner trying to simplify the constant
subexpression, even if every row in the table has x > 0 so that the ELSE arm would never be
entered at run time.

While that particular example might seem silly, related cases that don't obviously involve
constants can occur in queries executed within functions, since the values of function arguments
and local variables can be inserted into queries as constants for planning purposes.
Within PL/pgSQL functions, for example, using an IF-THEN-ELSE statement to protect a risky
computation is much safer than just nesting it in a CASE expression.

Another limitation of the same kind is that a CASE cannot prevent evaluation of an aggregate
expression contained within it, because aggregate expressions are computed before other
expressions in a SELECT list or HAVING clause are considered. For example, the following query
can cause a division-by-zero error despite seemingly having protected against it:

SELECT CASE WHEN min(employees) > 0

THEN avg(expenses / employees)
END
FROM departments;

The min() and avg() aggregates are computed concurrently over all the input rows, so if any row
has employees equal to zero, the division-by-zero error will occur before there is any opportunity
to test the result of min(). Instead, use a WHERE or FILTER clause to prevent problematic input
rows from reaching an aggregate function in the first place.

4.3. Calling Functions

PostgreSQL allows functions that have named parameters to be called using either positional or
named notation. Named notation is especially useful for functions that have a large number of
parameters, since it makes the associations between parameters and actual arguments more
explicit and reliable. In positional notation, a function call is written with its argument values in
the same order as they are defined in the function declaration. In named notation, the
arguments are matched to the function parameters by name and can be written in any order. For
each notation, also consider the effect of function argument types, documented in Section 10.3.

In either notation, parameters that have default values given in the function declaration need not
be written in the call at all. But this is particularly useful in named notation, since any
combination of parameters can be omitted; while in positional notation parameters can only be
omitted from right to left.
PostgreSQL also supports mixed notation, which combines positional and named notation. In this
case, positional parameters are written first and named parameters appear after them.

The following examples will illustrate the usage of all three notations, using the following
function definition:
CREATE FUNCTION concat_lower_or_upper(a text, b text, uppercase boolean DEFAULT
false)
RETURNS text
AS
$$
SELECT CASE
WHEN $3 THEN UPPER($1 || ' ' || $2)
ELSE LOWER($1 || ' ' || $2)
END;
$$
LANGUAGE SQL IMMUTABLE STRICT;

Function concat_lower_or_upper has two mandatory parameters, a and b. Additionally there is

one optional parameter uppercase which defaults to false. The a and b inputs will be
concatenated, and forced to either upper or lower case depending on the uppercase parameter.
The remaining details of this function definition are not important here (see Chapter 36 for
more information).

4.3.1. Using Positional Notation

Positional notation is the traditional mechanism for passing arguments to functions
in PostgreSQL. An example is:
SELECT concat_lower_or_upper('Hello', 'World', true);
concat_lower_or_upper
-----------------------
HELLO WORLD
(1 row)

All arguments are specified in order. The result is upper case since uppercase is specified
as true. Another example is:

SELECT concat_lower_or_upper('Hello', 'World');

concat_lower_or_upper
-----------------------
hello world
(1 row)

Here, the uppercase parameter is omitted, so it receives its default value of false, resulting in
lower case output. In positional notation, arguments can be omitted from right to left so long as
they have defaults.

4.3.2. Using Named Notation

In named notation, each argument's name is specified using => to separate it from the argument
expression. For example:
SELECT concat_lower_or_upper(a => 'Hello', b => 'World');
concat_lower_or_upper
-----------------------
hello world
(1 row)

Again, the argument uppercase was omitted so it is set to false implicitly. One advantage of
using named notation is that the arguments may be specified in any order, for example:
SELECT concat_lower_or_upper(a => 'Hello', b => 'World', uppercase => true);
concat_lower_or_upper
-----------------------
HELLO WORLD
(1 row)
SELECT concat_lower_or_upper(a => 'Hello', uppercase => true, b => 'World');
concat_lower_or_upper
-----------------------
HELLO WORLD
(1 row)

An older syntax based on ":=" is supported for backward compatibility:

SELECT concat_lower_or_upper(a := 'Hello', uppercase := true, b := 'World');
concat_lower_or_upper
-----------------------
HELLO WORLD
(1 row)

4.3.3. Using Mixed Notation

The mixed notation combines positional and named notation. However, as already mentioned,
named arguments cannot precede positional arguments. For example:
SELECT concat_lower_or_upper('Hello', 'World', uppercase => true);
concat_lower_or_upper
-----------------------
HELLO WORLD
(1 row)

In the above query, the arguments a and b are specified positionally, while uppercase is
specified by name. In this example, that adds little except documentation. With a more complex
function having numerous parameters that have default values, named or mixed notation can
save a great deal of writing and reduce chances for error.

Note
Named and mixed call notations currently cannot be used when calling an aggregate function
(but they do work when an aggregate function is used as a window function).