MySQL Bugs: #15234: Returning a table as result of a function

Bug #15234	Returning a table as result of a function
Submitted:	24 Nov 2005 16:55	Modified:	26 Nov 2005 17:36
Reporter:	Jonnes Bouma	Email Updates:
Status:	Verified	Impact on me:	None
Category:	MySQL Server: DML	Severity:	S4 (Feature request)
Version:		OS:	Any
Assigned to:		CPU Architecture:	Any

Description:
I was wandering if it is possible to return a table as result of a function or if this will be possible in the future.

How to repeat:
returning a table as result of a function fails.

Thank you for a feature request. But I see no need to add any new features, because stored procedures in MySQL returns any result sets selected in their bodies:

mysql> create procedure p()
    ->   select * from t1;
    -> //
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> call p()//
+----+-------------+
| id | txt         |
+----+-------------+
|  1 | hello world |
+----+-------------+
1 row in set (0.01 sec)

Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.03 sec)

So, there is a way to do this, already. Functions are for returning values of the predefined data types, not for returning "tables".

Actually it makes sense to have a function returning a table. Procedure does not return a table, it returns result sets, and you cannot select from them.

But such a feature, albeit useful, is not planned for the nearest future, I'm afraid,

Oracle has implemented this with strong results.  Particularly useful for analytic functions.  Dynamic manipulation of a JSON array in MySQL 8's JSON_TABLE() can be used as a threadbare workaround, but there needs to be cleaner way of accessing this functionality.