Just a Theory

Trans rights are human rights

Validating UPCs with PL/pgSQL

So I wanted to write a PL/pgSQL function to validate UPC codes. The rules for validation are:

  • The UPC must consist of 12 or 13 numerals
  • The last numeral is a checksum for the previous 11 numerals
  • The checksum is calculated as follows:
    • Add the digits in the odd-numbered positions in the string and multiply by three
    • Add in the digits in the even-numbered positions
    • Subtract the result from the next-higher multiple of ten.

It took me a few minutes to whip up this implementation in Perl:

use List::Util qw(sum);

sub validate_upc {
    my $upc = shift;
    my @nums = split $upc;
    shift @nums if @nums == 13; # Support EAN codes.
    die "$upc is not a valid UPC" if @upc != 12;
    10 - (  sum( @nums[0,2,4,6,8,10] ) * 3
            + sum( @nums[1,3,5,7,9] )
    ) % 10 == $nums[11];
}

Trying to do the same thing in PL/pgSQL was harder, mainly because I couldn’t find an easy way to split a string up into its individual characters. string_to_array() seems ideal, but don’t follow the same rules as Perl when it comes to the empty string:

try=% select string_to_array('123', '');
    string_to_array
    -----------------
    {123}
(1 row)

Bummer. So I had to fall back on individual calls to substring(), instead:

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION validate_upc (
upc text
) RETURNS boolean AS $$
DECLARE
    offset integer := 0;
BEGIN
    IF char_length(upc) = 13 THEN
        offset := 1;
    ELSIF char_length(upc) <> 12 THEN
        RAISE EXCEPTION '% is not a valid UPC', upc;
    END IF;

    IF 10 - (
        (
            substring(upc,  1 + offset, 1)::integer
            + substring(upc,  3 + offset, 1)::integer
            + substring(upc,  5 + offset, 1)::integer
            + substring(upc,  7 + offset, 1)::integer
            + substring(upc,  9 + offset, 1)::integer
            + substring(upc, 11 + offset, 1)::integer
            ) * 3
            + substring(upc,  2 + offset, 1)::integer
            + substring(upc,  4 + offset, 1)::integer
            + substring(upc,  6 + offset, 1)::integer
            + substring(upc,  8 + offset, 1)::integer
            + substring(upc, 10 + offset, 1)::integer
            ) % 10  = substring(upc, 12 + offset, 1)::integer
    THEN
        RETURN true;
    ELSE
        RETURN false;
    END IF;
END;
$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;

This works, and seems pretty fast, but I’m wondering if there isn’t an easier way to do this in PL/pgSQL. Do you know of one? Leave me a comment.

Looking for the comments? Try the old layout.