[postgresql] How to generate the "create table" sql statement for an existing table in postgreSQL

Here is another solution to the old question. There have been many excellent answers to this question over the years and my attempt borrows heavily from them.

I used Andrey Lebedenko's solution as a starting point because its output was already very close to my requirements.

Features:

• following common practice I have moved the foreign key constraints outside the table definition. They are now included as ALTER TABLE statements at the bottom. The reason is that a foreign key can also link to a column of the same table. In that fringe case the constraint can only be created after the table creation is completed. The create table statement would throw an error otherwise.
• The layout and indenting looks nicer now (at least to my eye)
• Drop command (commented out) in the header of the definition
• The solution is offered here as a plpgsql function. The algorithm does however not use any procedural language. The function just wraps one single query that can be used in a pure sql context as well.
• removed redundant subqueries
• Identifiers are now quoted if they are identical to reserved postgresql language elements
• replaced the string concatenation operator || with the appropriate string functions to improve performance, security and readability of the code. Note: the || operator produces NULL if one of the combined strings is NULL. It should only be used when that is the desired behaviour. (check out the usage in the code below for an example)

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION public.wmv_get_table_definition (
    p_schema_name character varying,
    p_table_name character varying
)
    RETURNS SETOF TEXT
    AS $BODY$
BEGIN
    RETURN query 
    WITH table_rec AS (
        SELECT
            c.relname, n.nspname, c.oid
        FROM
            pg_catalog.pg_class c
            LEFT JOIN pg_catalog.pg_namespace n ON n.oid = c.relnamespace
        WHERE
            relkind = 'r'
            AND n.nspname = p_schema_name
            AND c.relname LIKE p_table_name
        ORDER BY
            c.relname
    ),
    col_rec AS (
        SELECT
            a.attname AS colname,
            pg_catalog.format_type(a.atttypid, a.atttypmod) AS coltype,
            a.attrelid AS oid,
            ' DEFAULT ' || (
                SELECT
                    pg_catalog.pg_get_expr(d.adbin, d.adrelid)
                FROM
                    pg_catalog.pg_attrdef d
                WHERE
                    d.adrelid = a.attrelid
                    AND d.adnum = a.attnum
                    AND a.atthasdef) AS column_default_value,
            CASE WHEN a.attnotnull = TRUE THEN
                'NOT NULL'
            ELSE
                'NULL'
            END AS column_not_null,
            a.attnum AS attnum
        FROM
            pg_catalog.pg_attribute a
        WHERE
            a.attnum > 0
            AND NOT a.attisdropped
        ORDER BY
            a.attnum
    ),
    con_rec AS (
        SELECT
            conrelid::regclass::text AS relname,
            n.nspname,
            conname,
            pg_get_constraintdef(c.oid) AS condef,
            contype,
            conrelid AS oid
        FROM
            pg_constraint c
            JOIN pg_namespace n ON n.oid = c.connamespace
    ),
    glue AS (
        SELECT
            format( E'-- %1$I.%2$I definition\n\n-- Drop table\n\n-- DROP TABLE IF EXISTS %1$I.%2$I\n\nCREATE TABLE %1$I.%2$I (\n', table_rec.nspname, table_rec.relname) AS top,
            format( E'\n);\n\n\n-- adempiere.wmv_ghgaudit foreign keys\n\n', table_rec.nspname, table_rec.relname) AS bottom,
            oid
        FROM
            table_rec
    ),
    cols AS (
        SELECT
            string_agg(format('    %I %s%s %s', colname, coltype, column_default_value, column_not_null), E',\n') AS lines,
            oid
        FROM
            col_rec
        GROUP BY
            oid
    ),
    constrnt AS (
        SELECT
            string_agg(format('    CONSTRAINT %s %s', con_rec.conname, con_rec.condef), E',\n') AS lines,
            oid
        FROM
            con_rec
        WHERE
            contype <> 'f'
        GROUP BY
            oid
    ),
    frnkey AS (
        SELECT
            string_agg(format('ALTER TABLE %I.%I ADD CONSTRAINT %s %s', nspname, relname, conname, condef), E';\n') AS lines,
            oid
        FROM
            con_rec
        WHERE
            contype = 'f'
        GROUP BY
            oid
    )
    SELECT
        concat(glue.top, cols.lines, E',\n', constrnt.lines, glue.bottom, frnkey.lines, ';')
    FROM
        glue
        JOIN cols ON cols.oid = glue.oid
        LEFT JOIN constrnt ON constrnt.oid = glue.oid
        LEFT JOIN frnkey ON frnkey.oid = glue.oid;
END;
$BODY$
LANGUAGE plpgsql;