I recently had need of an "array_except" function but couldn't find any good/existing examples. Based off the neat "array_intersect" function at http://www.postgres.cz/index.php/PostgreSQL_SQL_Tricks#Intersection_of_arrays, I put together an "array_except" version to return the array elements that are not found in both arrays. Can anyone think of a faster version of this function? Maybe in C? The generate_series example takes about 3.5s on the dev db I'm testing on, which isn't too bad (for my needs at least). create or replace function array_except(anyarray,anyarray) returns anyarray as $$ select array_agg(elements) from ( (select unnest($1) except select unnest($2)) union (select unnest($2) except select unnest($1)) ) as r (elements) $$ language sql strict immutable; select array_except('{this,is,a,test}'::text[],'{also,part,of,a,test,run}'::text[]); select array_to_relation(arr) from array_except( (select array_agg(n) from generate_series(1,1000000,1) as n), (select array_agg(n) from generate_series(5,1000005,1) as n) ) as arr; I'm testing on 9.0.4 -- Sent via pgsql-performance mailing list (pgsql-performance@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-performance