Generalize Get/Create Stored Procedure From One Item to Many - sql

Question

I have an express.js server running an application and from that server I can access or create "variant_id"s in PostgreSQL (Version 11) by using a stored procedure.
SELECT(get_or_create_variant_id(info_about_variant));
Sometimes I also need to get a bunch of these variant ids back by using a different stored procedure that takes multiple variants and returns multiple ids.
SELECT(get_or_create_variant_ids([info_about_variant, info_about_another_variant]));
What is the best way to generalize getting/creating a single id to doing multiple at once? I'm handling it in a LOOP in my stored procedure, but it feels like I should be able to use a JOIN instead.
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION get_or_create_variant_id(
variant_in VARIANT_TYPE
) RETURNS INT AS $$
DECLARE variant_id_out INTEGER;
BEGIN
-- I'll be changing this to a ON CONFLICT block shortly
SELECT(get_variant_id(variant_in) INTO variant_id_out);
IF (variant_id_out IS NOT NULL) THEN
RETURN variant_id_out;
ELSE
INSERT INTO public.variant (
[some_fields]
)
VALUES (
[some_values]
)
RETURNING variant_id INTO variant_id_out;
RETURN variant_id_out;
END IF;
END;
$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;
-- What is the best way to avoid a loop here?
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION get_or_create_variant_ids(
variants_in VARIANT_TYPE []
) RETURNS INT [] AS $$
DECLARE variant_ids_out INTEGER [];
DECLARE variants_in_length INTEGER;
DECLARE current_variant_id INTEGER;
BEGIN
SELECT (array_length(variants_in, 1) INTO variants_in_length);
FOR i IN 1..variants_in_length LOOP
SELECT(get_or_create_variant_id(variants_in[i]) INTO current_variant_id);
SELECT(array_append(variant_ids_out, current_variant_id) INTO variant_ids_out);
END LOOP;
RETURN variant_ids_out;
END;
$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;
-- Everything below is included for completeness, but probably less relevant to my question.
CREATE TYPE variant_type AS (
[lots of info about the variant]
);
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION get_variant_id(
variant_in VARIANT_TYPE
) RETURNS INT AS $$
DECLARE variant_id_out INTEGER;
BEGIN
SELECT variant_id into variant_id_out
FROM public.variant
WHERE
[I want them to]
;
RETURN variant_id_out;
END;
$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;

Answer 1

You can avoid explicit loop using builtin array functions - in this case, unnest function, and array constructor.
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION get_or_create_variant_ids_v2(
variants_in VARIANT_TYPE []
)
RETURNS integer []
LANGUAGE sql AS $$
SELECT ARRAY(
SELECT get_or_create_variant_id(u.v)
FROM unnest(variants_in) AS u(v)
)
$$ LANGUAGE sql;