I have looked at: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.4/plperl-database.html I am also comfortable querying data from tables in perl. But I do not quite see how to get the results of a query in plperl. Here is what I tried, and it is not working: my $rv2 = spi_exec_query('SELECT current_user'); my $user = $rv2->{rows}[1]->{my_column}; I have used this query in SQL functions, so I know it works. I also ran it in plsql. What do I have wrong here? -- "They that would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin