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# PDO::sqliteCreateAggregate

(no version information, might be only in CVS)

PDO::sqliteCreateAggregate -- Registers an aggregating User Defined Function for use in SQL statements

## Description

bool PDO::sqliteCreateAggregate ( string function_name, callback step_func, callback finalize_func [, int num_args] )

Warning
This function is EXPERIMENTAL. The behaviour of this function, the name of this function, and anything else documented about this function may change without notice in a future release of PHP. Use this function at your own risk.

PDO::sqliteCreateAggregate() is similar to PDO::sqliteCreateFunction() except that it registers functions that can be used to calculate a result aggregated across all the rows of a query.

The key difference between this function and PDO::sqliteCreateFunction() is that two functions are required to manage the aggregate; step_func is called for each row of the result set. Your PHP function should accumulate the result and store it into the aggregation context. Once all the rows have been processed, finalize_func will be called and it should then take the data from the aggregation context and return the result. Callback functions should return a type understood by SQLite (i.e. scalar type).

## Parameters

function_name

  The name of the function used in SQL statements.

step_func

  Callback function called for each row of the result set.

finalize_func

  Callback function to aggregate the "stepped" data from each row.

num_args

  Hint to the SQLite parser if the callback function accepts a predetermined number of arguments.

## Examples

Example 1. max_length aggregation function example
`<?php $data = array( 'one', 'two', 'three', 'four', 'five', 'six', 'seven', 'eight', 'nine', 'ten', ); $db = new PDO('sqlite::memory:'); $db->exec("CREATE TABLE strings(a)"); $insert = $db->prepare('INSERT INTO strings VALUES (?)'); foreach ($data as $str) { $insert->execute(array($str)); } $insert = null; function max_len_step(&$context, $string) { if (strlen($string) > $context) { $context = strlen($string); } } function max_len_finalize(&$context) { return $context; } $db->sqliteCreateAggregate('max_len', 'max_len_step', 'max_len_finalize'); var_dump($db->query('SELECT max_len(a) from strings')->fetchAll()); ?>`

In this example, we are creating an aggregating function that will calculate the length of the longest string in one of the columns of the table. For each row, the max_len_step function is called and passed a context parameter. The context parameter is just like any other PHP variable and be set to hold an array or even an object value. In this example, we are simply using it to hold the maximum length we have seen so far; if the string has a length longer than the current maximum, we update the context to hold this new maximum length.

After all of the rows have been processed, SQLite calls the max_len_finalize function to determine the aggregate result. Here, we could perform some kind of calculation based on the data found in the context. In our simple example though, we have been calculating the result as the query progressed, so we simply need to return the context value.

> Tip: It is NOT recommended for you to store a copy of the values in the context and then process them at the end, as you would cause SQLite to use a lot of memory to process the query - just think of how much memory you would need if a million rows were stored in memory, each containing a string 32 bytes in length.

> Tip: You can use PDO::sqliteCreateFunction() and PDO::sqliteCreateAggregate() to override SQLite native SQL functions.

> Note: This method is not available with the SQLite2 driver. Use the old style sqlite API for that instead.

## See Also

PDO::sqliteCreateFunction()
sqlite_create_function()
sqlite_create_aggregate()

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