plPHP beta released

Command Prompt, Inc. (authors of Practical PostgreSQL from O’ReillY) are releasing their plPHP ( http://www.commandprompt.com/entry.lxp?lxpe=260 )to the open source community under the PHP License. Now you can create custom postgreSQL function using your favority scripting language (php) and utilize them in the database.

Example:
We will replace each line break in a text field with a html break tag (followed by a line break).

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION line_breaks(text) RETURNS text AS '
  $txt = str_replace("n","<br&gt;n", $arg0);
  if ($txt) {
    return $txt;
  }
' LANGUAGE 'plphp';




Then you can call your SELECT like so:


dbname=# SELECT id, line_breaks(body) FROM table1 ;
 id |        line_breaks
----+-----------------------
  1 | Lots of text

wjpoefjeowpqjf

body text r09u3 


 234jr23032ur03u29r0u

p2jend of text
(1 row)