Array Functions and Operators

anyarray @> anyarray → boolean

Does the first array contain the second, that is, does each element appearing in the second array equal some element of the first array? (Duplicates are not treated specially, thus ARRAY[1] and ARRAY[1,1] are each considered to contain the other.)

ARRAY[1,4,3] @> ARRAY[3,1,3] → t

anyarray <@ anyarray → boolean

Is the first array contained by the second?

ARRAY[2,2,7] <@ ARRAY[1,7,4,2,6] → t

anyarray && anyarray → boolean

Do the arrays overlap, that is, have any elements in common?

ARRAY[1,4,3] && ARRAY[2,1] → t

anycompatiblearray || anycompatiblearray → anycompatiblearray

Concatenates the two arrays. Concatenating a null or empty array is a no-op; otherwise the arrays must have the same number of dimensions (as illustrated by the first example) or differ in number of dimensions by one (as illustrated by the second). If the arrays are not of identical element types, they will be coerced to a common type (see Section 9.5).

ARRAY[1,2,3] || ARRAY[4,5,6,7] → {1,2,3,4,5,6,7}

ARRAY[1,2,3] || ARRAY[[4,5,6],[7,8,9.9]] → {{1,2,3},}4,5,6},}7,8,9.9}}

anycompatible || anycompatiblearray → anycompatiblearray

Concatenates an element onto the front of an array (which must be empty or one-dimensional).

3 || ARRAY[4,5,6] → {3,4,5,6}

anycompatiblearray || anycompatible → anycompatiblearray

Concatenates an element onto the end of an array (which must be empty or one-dimensional).

ARRAY[4,5,6] || 7 → {4,5,6,7}

array_append ( anycompatiblearray, anycompatible ) → anycompatiblearray

Appends an element to the end of an array (same as the anycompatiblearray || anycompatible operator).

array_append(ARRAY[1,2], 3) → {1,2,3}

array_cat ( anycompatiblearray, anycompatiblearray ) → anycompatiblearray

Concatenates two arrays (same as the anycompatiblearray || anycompatiblearray operator).

array_cat(ARRAY[1,2,3], ARRAY[4,5]) → {1,2,3,4,5}

array_length ( anyarray, integer ) → integer

Returns the length of the requested array dimension.

array_length(array[1,2,3], 1) → 3

array_position ( anycompatiblearray, anycompatible [, integer ] ) → integer

Returns the subscript of the first occurrence of the second argument in the array, or NULL if it's not present. If the third argument is given, the search begins at that subscript. The array must be one-dimensional. Comparisons are done using IS NOT DISTINCT FROM semantics, so it is possible to search for NULL.

array_position(ARRAY['sun', 'mon', 'tue', 'wed', 'thu', 'fri', 'sat'], 'mon') → 2

array_positions ( anycompatiblearray, anycompatible ) → integer[]

Returns an array of the subscripts of all occurrences of the second argument in the array given as first argument. The array must be one-dimensional. Comparisons are done using IS NOT DISTINCT FROM semantics, so it is possible to search for NULL. NULL is returned only if the array is NULL; if the value is not found in the array, an empty array is returned.

array_positions(ARRAY['A','A','B','A'], 'A') → {1,2,4}

array_prepend ( anycompatible, anycompatiblearray ) → anycompatiblearray

Prepends an element to the beginning of an array (same as the anycompatible || anycompatiblearray operator).

array_prepend(1, ARRAY[2,3]) → {1,2,3}

array_remove ( anycompatiblearray, anycompatible ) → anycompatiblearray

Removes all elements equal to the given value from the array. The array must be one-dimensional. Comparisons are done using IS NOT DISTINCT FROM semantics, so it is possible to remove NULLs.

array_remove(ARRAY[1,2,3,2], 2) → {1,3}

array_replace ( anycompatiblearray, anycompatible, anycompatible ) → anycompatiblearray

Replaces each array element equal to the second argument with the third argument.

array_replace(ARRAY[1,2,5,4], 5, 3) → {1,2,3,4}

array_to_string ( array anyarray, delimiter text [, null_string text ] ) → text

Converts each array element to its text representation, and concatenates those separated by the delimiter string. If null_string is given and is not NULL, then NULL array entries are represented by that string; otherwise, they are omitted.

array_to_string(ARRAY[1, 2, 3, NULL, 5], ',', '*') → 1,2,3,*,5

array_upper ( anyarray, integer ) → integer

Returns the upper bound of the requested array dimension.

array_upper(ARRAY[1,8,3,7], 1) → 4

trim_array ( array anyarray, n integer ) → anyarray

Trims an array by removing the last n elements. If the array is multidimensional, only the first dimension is trimmed.

trim_array(ARRAY[1,2,3,4,5,6], 2) → {1,2,3,4}

unnest ( anyarray ) → setof anyelement

Expands an array into a set of rows. The array's elements are read out in storage order.

unnest(ARRAY[1,2]) →

1
 2

unnest(ARRAY[['foo','bar'],['baz','quux']]) →

foo
 bar
 baz
 quux

unnest ( anyarray, anyarray [, ... ] ) → setof anyelement, anyelement [, ... ]

Expands multiple arrays (possibly of different data types) into a set of rows. If the arrays are not all the same length then the shorter ones are padded with NULLs. This form is only allowed in a query's FROM clause; .

select * from unnest(ARRAY[1,2], ARRAY['foo','bar','baz']) as x(a,b) →

a |  b
---+-----
 1 | foo
 2 | bar
   | baz