PostgreSQL tip: arbitrary serialized rows
By David Christensen
March 8, 2010
Sometimes when using PostgreSQL, you want to deal with a record in its serialized form. If you’re dealing with a specific table, you can accomplish this using the table name itself:
psql # CREATE TABLE foo (bar text, baz int);
CREATE TABLE
psql # INSERT INTO foo VALUES ('test 1', 1), ('test 2', 2);
INSERT 0 2
psql # SELECT foo FROM foo;
foo
--------------
("test 1",1)
("test 2",2)
(2 rows)
This works fine for defined tables, but how to go about this for arbitrary SELECTs? The answer is simple: wrap in a subselect and alias as so:
psql # SELECT q FROM (SELECT 1, 2) q;
q
-------
(1,2)
(1 row)
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