Command Prompt, Inc. (authors of Practical PostgreSQL from O'ReillY) are releasing their plPHP ( http://www.commandprompt.com/entry.lxp?lxpe=260 )to the open source community under the PHP License. Now you can create custom postgreSQL function using your favority scripting language (php) and utilize them in the database.
Example:
We will replace each line break in a text field with a html break tag (followed by a line break).
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION line_breaks(text) RETURNS text AS '
$txt = str_replace("\n","<br>\n", $arg0);
if ($txt) {
return $txt;
}
' LANGUAGE 'plphp';
Then you can call your SELECT like so:
dbname=# SELECT id, line_breaks(body) FROM table1 ;
id | line_breaks
----+-----------------------
1 | Lots of text
wjpoefjeowpqjf
body text r09u3