Support multi-argument UNNEST(), and TABLE() syntax for multiple functions.

This patch adds the ability to write TABLE( function1(), function2(), ...)
as a single FROM-clause entry.  The result is the concatenation of the
first row from each function, followed by the second row from each
function, etc; with NULLs inserted if any function produces fewer rows than
others.  This is believed to be a much more useful behavior than what
Postgres currently does with multiple SRFs in a SELECT list.

This syntax also provides a reasonable way to combine use of column
definition lists with WITH ORDINALITY: put the column definition list
inside TABLE(), where it's clear that it doesn't control the ordinality
column as well.

Also implement SQL-compliant multiple-argument UNNEST(), by turning
UNNEST(a,b,c) into TABLE(unnest(a), unnest(b), unnest(c)).

The SQL standard specifies TABLE() with only a single function, not
multiple functions, and it seems to require an implicit UNNEST() which is
not what this patch does.  There may be something wrong with that reading
of the spec, though, because if it's right then the spec's TABLE() is just
a pointless alternative spelling of UNNEST().  After further review of
that, we might choose to adopt a different syntax for what this patch does,
but in any case this functionality seems clearly worthwhile.

Andrew Gierth, reviewed by Zoltán Böszörményi and Heikki Linnakangas, and
significantly revised by me

1 files changed, 2 insertions, 6 deletions

diff --git a/src/include/nodes/plannodes.h b/src/include/nodes/plannodes.h
index 44ea0b7752..101e22cee1 100644
--- a/src/include/nodes/plannodes.h
+++ b/src/include/nodes/plannodes.h
@@ -424,12 +424,8 @@ typedef struct SubqueryScan
 typedef struct FunctionScan
 {
 	Scan		scan;
-	Node	   *funcexpr;		/* expression tree for func call */
-	bool        funcordinality; /* WITH ORDINALITY */
-	List	   *funccolnames;	/* output column names (string Value nodes) */
-	List	   *funccoltypes;	/* OID list of column type OIDs */
-	List	   *funccoltypmods; /* integer list of column typmods */
-	List	   *funccolcollations;		/* OID list of column collation OIDs */
+	List	   *functions;		/* list of RangeTblFunction nodes */
+	bool		funcordinality; /* WITH ORDINALITY */
 } FunctionScan;
 
 /* ----------------