CREATE OPERATOR — define a new operator
CREATE OPERATORname
( PROCEDURE =funcname
[, LEFTARG =lefttype
] [, RIGHTARG =righttype
] [, COMMUTATOR =com_op
] [, NEGATOR =neg_op
] [, RESTRICT =res_proc
] [, JOIN =join_proc
] [, HASHES ] [, MERGES ] [, SORT1 =left_sort_op
] [, SORT2 =right_sort_op
] [, LTCMP =less_than_op
] [, GTCMP =greater_than_op
] )
CREATE OPERATOR
defines a new operator,
name
. The user who
defines an operator becomes its owner. If a schema name is given
then the operator is created in the specified schema. Otherwise it
is created in the current schema.
The operator name is a sequence of up to NAMEDATALEN
-1
(63 by default) characters from the following list:
+ - * / < > = ~ ! @ # % ^ & | ` ?
There are a few restrictions on your choice of name:
--
and /*
cannot appear anywhere in an operator name,
since they will be taken as the start of a comment.
A multicharacter operator name cannot end in +
or
-
,
unless the name also contains at least one of these characters:
~ ! @ # % ^ & | ` ?
For example, @-
is an allowed operator name,
but *-
is not.
This restriction allows PostgreSQL to
parse SQL-compliant commands without requiring spaces between tokens.
The operator !=
is mapped to
<>
on input, so these two names are always
equivalent.
At least one of LEFTARG
and RIGHTARG
must be defined. For
binary operators, both must be defined. For right unary
operators, only LEFTARG
should be defined, while for left
unary operators only RIGHTARG
should be defined.
The funcname
procedure must have been previously defined using CREATE
FUNCTION
and must be defined to accept the correct number
of arguments (either one or two) of the indicated types.
The other clauses specify optional operator optimization clauses. Their meaning is detailed in Section 33.13, “Operator Optimization Information”.
name
The name of the operator to be defined. See above for allowable
characters. The name may be schema-qualified, for example
CREATE OPERATOR myschema.+ (...)
. If not, then
the operator is created in the current schema. Two operators
in the same schema can have the same name if they operate on
different data types. This is called
overloading.
funcname
The function used to implement this operator.
lefttype
The data type of the operator's left operand, if any. This option would be omitted for a left-unary operator.
righttype
The data type of the operator's right operand, if any. This option would be omitted for a right-unary operator.
com_op
The commutator of this operator.
neg_op
The negator of this operator.
res_proc
The restriction selectivity estimator function for this operator.
join_proc
The join selectivity estimator function for this operator.
HASHES
Indicates this operator can support a hash join.
MERGES
Indicates this operator can support a merge join.
left_sort_op
If this operator can support a merge join, the less-than operator that sorts the left-hand data type of this operator.
right_sort_op
If this operator can support a merge join, the less-than operator that sorts the right-hand data type of this operator.
less_than_op
If this operator can support a merge join, the less-than operator that compares the input data types of this operator.
greater_than_op
If this operator can support a merge join, the greater-than operator that compares the input data types of this operator.
To give a schema-qualified operator name in com_op
or the other optional
arguments, use the OPERATOR()
syntax, for example
COMMUTATOR = OPERATOR(myschema.===) ,
Refer to Section 33.12, “User-Defined Operators” for further information.
Use DROP OPERATOR to delete user-defined operators from a database. Use ALTER OPERATOR to modify operators in a database.
The following command defines a new operator, area-equality, for
the data type box
:
CREATE OPERATOR === ( LEFTARG = box, RIGHTARG = box, PROCEDURE = area_equal_procedure, COMMUTATOR = ===, NEGATOR = !==, RESTRICT = area_restriction_procedure, JOIN = area_join_procedure, HASHES, SORT1 = <<<, SORT2 = <<< -- Since sort operators were given, MERGES is implied. -- LTCMP and GTCMP are assumed to be < and > respectively );