retrieve column array values

[artistlikeu]

i have a column which contains arrays of variable length. for example one array contains 5 elements, another contains 2 elements, another array 10 elements.
i have 500 records in this column

i want to select all elements of an array then below all elements of another array and so on in a normal column. this is very urgent if some body can help plz....

infact this operation is reverse to insert values from a column into array.

thnx n regards

[MarkD]

Do you mean essentially exploding the results into individual rows:

source:

{1,2,3} , {3,4,5,6,7,8} , {9,a,b,c}

desired result :
1
2
3
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
a
b
c

If so you can use an explode array stored procedure like this:

 
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION explode_array(in_array anyarray)
  RETURNS SETOF anyelement AS
$BODY$
    SELECT ($1)[s] FROM generate_series(1, array_upper($1, 1)) AS s;
$BODY$
  LANGUAGE 'sql' IMMUTABLE;
ALTER FUNCTION explode_array(in_array anyarray) OWNER TO postgres;
 

and call

SELECT explode_array( col1 || col2 || col3 )
FROM Table blah

where col1, col2 and col3 are the arrays in your table. The || operator joins the arrays together first.

Thanks.