Return Type

Every LANUAGE plrust function has the same general return type, which is:

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
fn foo() -> Result<
        Option<T>, 
        Box<dyn std::error::Error + Send + Sync + 'static>
> {
    
}
}

The T is determined by the mapping from the declared SQL type during CREATE FUNCTION, and the rest is essentially boilerplate to allow easy handling of Rust Results and the SQL concept of NULL.

Why Option<T>?

Any PostgreSQL procedural language function can return NULL. PL/Rust understands and represents SQL NULL as Option::None. It may seem cumbersome, but PL/Rust function must return an Option<T>, as either Some(T) (non-null value) or None (NULL value).

While PostgreSQL's STRICT function property can influence the return value such that "any NULL argument guarantees a NULL return", Postgres does not have a way to express that a function "will never return NULL". As such, PL/Rust functions have the opportunity to return NULL built into their underlying function signature.

If a PL/Rust function would never return NULL, always return the Some variant.

Why Result<..., Box<dyn std::error::Error + Send + Sync + 'static>>?

Generally speaking, Postgres procedural language functions, and even Postgres internals, can be considered "fail fast" in that they tend to raise an error/exception at the exact point when it happens. Rust tends towards propagating errors up the stack, relying on the caller to handle it.

PL/Rust bridges this gap by requiring all LANGUAGE plrust functions to return a Result, and PL/Rust itself will interpret the return value from the function and report a Result::Err(e) as a Postgres ERROR, aborting the current transaction.

Returning a Result helps to simplify error handling, especially when a LANGUAGE plrust function uses Spi as the Rust ? operator is usable to propagate errors during function execution.

Since the Rust "Error" type cannot be expressed as part of the CREATE FUNCTION statement, PL/Rust generalizes the error to Box<dyn std::error::Error + Send + Sync + 'static> to provide as much compatability as possible with the wide range of concrete Error types in the Rust ecosystem.