"Postgres User" <postgres.developer@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > My users are developers and the goal was to accept a simple > comma-delimited list of string values as a function's input parameter. > The function would then parse this input param into a valid regex > expression. Why are you fixated on this being a regex? If you aren't actually trying to expose regex capabilities to the users, you'll just be having to suppress a bunch of strange behaviors for special characters. ISTM that the best solution is to use an array-of-text parameter, along the lines of where name = any (array['Smith', 'Jones', ...]) For what you're doing, you'd not actually want the array[] syntax, it would look more like where name = any ('{Smith,Jones}'::text[]) This should optimize into an indexscan in 8.2 or later. regards, tom lane ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 1: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly