Is it possible to create a table with a variable name in PostgreSQL?

Question

Using PL/pgSQL or (some other mechanism), is it possible to create a table with a variable name?

I would like to create multiple tables named table_1, table_2, table_3, etc... and it would be simpler if I could use a loop to create them, instead of explicitly creating each one.

I suspect the answer to this is no, but I would like to confirm it.

Answer 1

While I would question your design if you're relying on such tricks, your question is general and you didn't give specific information to judge either way.

It should be possible, actually. It's only a matter of programmatically building the table names as strings and then, in a loop, execute your CREATE statements as dynamic queries.

See this page in the postgres documentation: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/interactive/plpgsql-statements.html#PLPGSQL-STATEMENTS-EXECUTING-DYN

Answer 2

Generate a script by building the commands dynamically in a loop, then run the resulting output script.