Hello
Is it true that postgres doesn't have a notion of Stored Procedures and functions is what it has instead? RDBMS like Sql Server supports both stored procedures and functions. So I was wondering what is the difference between a Stored Procedure and a function.
It's true. PostgreSQL knows only functions. Difference between procedures and function are in calling context a possibilities, and depends on database system. Functions are called from SELECT statements, procedures are called via statement CALL. On some systems functions has some limits (it's not true for PostgreSQL). On some systems procedures allow transaction con troll, returning multirecordset (unbind selects), and more. PostgreSQL implementation is more practical than elegant. PostgreSQL functions hasn't classic limits, but some design points are little bit dirty. When you start to play with OUT variables, you will see. For beginner, difference between function and procedure is less than small in PostgreSQL. There are two families of stored procedures: Oracle and Microsoft. Look to their documentation. Regards Pavel Stehule
