How to insert data by using json in postgresql 9.2

Question

I have two tables called book and author .

create table book(bookid BIGSERIAL,
           bookname VARCHAR,
           book_type VARCHAR,
           book_pub_date DATE
           );

create table Author(Authorid BIGSERIAL,
           Authorname VARCHAR,
           Author_emailadddr VARCHAR,
           Author_phone integer
           );

Application will pass the data in JSON format thru stored function. So how to store the JSON data into a tables?

Input data (Application will pass the following data thru stored function):

{
    "bookid" : "1",
    "bookname" : "sample book",
    "book type" : "history",
    "book_pub_date" : "2015-09-08",
    "Author" : [{
            "Authorname" : "xyz",
            "Author_emailadddr" : "xyz@gmail.com",
            "Author_phone" : "080-99978754"
        }
    ]
}

Is it possible to parse the json data into a tables?

(I'm using PostgreSQL 9.2).

Answer 1

I think you might need Postgres 9.3+ for a pure sql solution. 9.2 has limited json functionality compared to newer versions. http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.2/static/functions-json.html

Answer 2

In PostgreSQL 9.2 you will need to use a function written with pl/perl, pl/python, etc, using the relevant JSON decoding support for that language, and using the SPI to then insert the extracted data into tables. Use, eg Python's json module or Perl's JSON module to extract the fields, then the relevant SPI calls to create SQL to do the inserts based on the extracted data.

See:

• Python json or perl JSON
• pl/pythonu or pl/perlu

In particular, note the sections of the plperl and plpython docs for interacting with the database and running queries.

It's really not much different to doing it with an external script.

---

In PostgreSQL 9.4 and above you could start to use PostgreSQL's own json support to extract parts of the json in pl/pgsql and insert the extracted sections. No more need for plperl or plpython.