Let's say I have two Postgresql database groups, "authors" and "editors", and two users, "maxwell" and "ernest".

create role authors;

create role editors;

create user maxwell;

create user ernest;

grant authors to editors; --editors can do what authors can do

grant editors to maxwell; --maxwell is an editor

grant authors to ernest; --ernest is an author


I would like to write a performant function that returns a list of the roles (preferably their oid's) that maxwell belongs to, something like this:

create or replace function get_all_roles() returns oid[] ...


It should return the oids for maxwell, authors, and editors (but not ernest).

But I am not sure how to do it when there is inheritance.

You can query the system catalog with a recursive query, in particular pg_auth_members:

WITH RECURSIVE cte AS (
   SELECT oid FROM pg_roles WHERE rolname = 'maxwell'

   UNION ALL
   SELECT m.roleid
   FROM   cte
   JOIN   pg_auth_members m ON m.member = cte.oid
   )
SELECT oid, oid::regrole::text AS rolename FROM cte;  -- oid & name


The manual about the cast to object identifier type regrole.

BTW 1: INHERIT is the default behavior of CREATE ROLE and doesn't have to be spelled out.

BTW 2: circular dependencies are not possible. Postgres disallows that. So we don't have to check for that.
