PostgreSQL jsonb_populate_record() Function

Summary: in this tutorial, you will learn how to use the PostgreSQL jsonb_populate_record() function to populate the fields of a record type from a JSON object.

Introduction to the PostgreSQL jsonb_populate_record() function

The jsonb_populate_record() function expands the top-level JSON object of type JSONB to a row of a specified composite type.

In other words, the jsonb_populate_record() function converts a JSON object into a row of a specified composite type.

Here’s the basic syntax of the jsonb_populate_record() function:

jsonb_populate_record (
   target anyelement,
   json_object jsonb
) → anyelement

In this syntax:

target is a composite type to which you want to expand the JSONB value.
json_object is a JSON object of the JSONB type that you want to expand.

The jsonb_populate_record() function returns a record of the specified type with its fields populated using the key-value pairs from the JSON object.

PostgreSQL jsonb_populate_record() function examples

Let’s explore some examples of using the jsonb_populate_record() function.

1) Basic jsonb_populate_record() function example

First, create a new type called person:

CREATE TYPE person AS (
  id INT,
  name VARCHAR,
  age INT
);

Second, use the jsonb_populate_record() function to expand the JSON object to a row of the person type:

SELECT
  jsonb_populate_record(
    null :: person,
   '{"id": 1, "name": "John", "age": 22}' :: jsonb
  );

Output:

jsonb_populate_record
-----------------------
 (1,John,22)
(1 row)

2) Using the jsonb_populate_record() function with table data

First, create a new table called employees:

CREATE TABLE employees (
    id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
    name VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL,
    age INT NOT NULL,
    salary NUMERIC NOT NULL
);

Second, insert some rows into the employees table:

INSERT INTO employees (name, age, salary)
VALUES
  ('John Doe', 25, 70000),
  ('Jane Smith', 22, 80000);

Third, use jsonb_populate_record() to query the data from the employees table in a structured format:

SELECT
  jsonb_populate_record(
    null :: employees,
    jsonb_build_object(
      'id', id, 'name', name, 'age', age, 'salary',
      salary
    )
  ) AS employees
FROM
  employees;