Maybe this is a well duh kind of question, or maybe there's no straightforward way to do it, but is there any way that I could have a pg function initiate a process on the host system? Specifically I'd like to script an email to send off on an insert trigger, but the ability to initiate system processes in general seems like it would come in handy. My present need is for email notification; if there's a pg function or module that would handle this (I haven't turned up anything in my searches, but maybe I'm using the wrong search terms in the wrong places) I'd be OK for now, but I'd rather have the flexibility of starting whatever process a given circumstance calls for.
I've never done it, and while you can do it with the various pl languages, you might also look into the notice/listen stuff.
That way your app doesn't have to wait for the process to finish, but can send a notice which another server side app can listen for and do whatever it needs to do.
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/sql-notify.html http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/sql-listen.html
