Difference between return next and return record

Question

What is the difference between RETURN NEXT and RETURN RECORD in PL/pgSQL? I find the manual quite confusing in explaining what RETURN RECORD actually does. What is a RECORD type?

Answer 1

While RETURN NEXT is valid plpgsql syntax, RETURN RECORD is non-existent as such. Read the manual about how to return from a function. It directly corresponds to how you declared the return type in the function header.

In a function declaring RETURNS int you can:

RETURN 1;

For RETURNS SETOF int you can use:

RETURN NEXT 1;

If you declared OUT parameters, you can just:

RETURN;

Or if you combine OUT parameters with RETURNS SETOF record - which is effectively the same as RETURNS TABLE (...):

RETURN NEXT;

The current state of all OUT parameters is returned automatically in this case.

Finally, there is the short syntax to return a whole set of rows at once:

RETURN QUERY ...

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record is just a special data type that has a slightly different meaning, depending on where you use it. Like I posted in my answer to your preceding question: "Declare variable of table type in PL/pgSQL", the manual explains the record type in plpgsql here.