After for the umpteenth time bashing my head against a wall developing some PL funcs that use dynamic SQL, going plain bonkers trying to build the query string; I came up with a function like the one below to take a string with placeholders, an array of values to be interpolated and a placeholder char. (This may appear Pythonish to some. Question: Am I overlooking a simple way of doing this? As in; raise notice 'Foo % %', v_var1, v_var2; create function make_string(v_template text, v_vars text[], v_placeholder char) returns text as $$ declare v_temp text[] := string_to_array(v_template, v_placeholder); v_output text[]; begin if array_upper(v_vars, 1) + 1 != array_upper(v_temp, 1) then raise exception 'Too many vars; should be equal to placeholders "%" in string', v_placeholder; end if; for i in 2 .. array_upper(v_temp, 1) * 2 by 2 loop v_output [i - 1] := v_temp[i / 2]; v_output [i] := v_vars[i / 2]; end loop; return array_to_string(v_output, ''); end $$ language plpgsql; The above function makes possible to do something like this shown below wich for complex dynamic SQL strings, can be a lot easier to create than with the usual combo of string constants pasted together with PL vars using ||. execute make_string($$ create table fooschema.% ; create rule % as on insert to fooschema.% where % do whatever ; $$, array [ v_tablename, v_rulename, v_tablename, v_conditions ], '%' ); -- ...Still not exactly simple, I realize :-) Thanks ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jerry Sievers 732 365-2844 (work) Production Database Administrator 305 321-1144 (mobil WWW E-Commerce Consultant ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend