How to set value of composite variable field using dynamic SQL

Question

Given this type:

-- Just for testing purposes:
CREATE TYPE testType as (name text)

I can get the value of a field dynamically with this function:

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION get_field(object anyelement, field text) RETURNS text as
$BODY$
DECLARE
    value text;
BEGIN
    EXECUTE 'SELECT $1."' || field || '"'
      USING object
       INTO value;

    return value;
END;
$BODY$
LANGUAGE plpgsql

Calling get_field('(david)'::testType, 'name') works as expected returning "david".

But how can I set a value of a field in a composite type? I've tried these functions:

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION set_field_try1(object anyelement, field text, value text)
RETURNS anyelement
as
$BODY$
DECLARE
    value text;
BEGIN
    EXECUTE '$1."' || field || '" := $2'
      USING object, value;

    return object;
END;
$BODY$
LANGUAGE plpgsql

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION set_field_try2(object anyelement, field text, value text)
RETURNS anyelement
as
$BODY$
DECLARE
    value text;
BEGIN
    EXECUTE 'SELECT $1 INTO $2."' || field || '"'
      USING value, object;

    return object;
END;
$BODY$
LANGUAGE plpgsql

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION set_field_try3(object anyelement, field text, value text)
RETURNS anyelement
as
$BODY$
DECLARE
    value text;
BEGIN
    EXECUTE 'BEGIN $1."' || field || '" := $2; SELECT $1; END;'
       INTO object
      USING value, object;

    return object;
END;
$BODY$
LANGUAGE plpgsql

and some variations. Calling set_field_tryX doesn't work. I always get "ERROR: syntax error at or near...". How can I accomplish this?

Notes:

• The parameter is anyelement and the field can be any field in the composite type. I can't just use object.name.
• I'm concerned about SQL injection. Any advice in this would be appreciated but it is not my question.

Answer 1

I wrote a second version of setfield function. It work on postgres 9.1 I didn't test it on older versions. It's not a miracle (from performance view), but it is more robust and about 8 times faster than the previous.

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION public.setfield2(anyelement, text, text)
 RETURNS anyelement
 LANGUAGE plpgsql
AS $function$
DECLARE 
  _name text;
  _values text[];
  _value text;
  _attnum int;
BEGIN
  FOR _name, _attnum
     IN SELECT a.attname, a.attnum
          FROM pg_catalog.pg_attribute a 
         WHERE a.attrelid = (SELECT typrelid
                               FROM pg_type
                              WHERE oid = pg_typeof($1)::oid)
           AND a.attnum > 0 
  LOOP
    IF _name = $2 THEN
      _value := $3;
    ELSE
      EXECUTE 'SELECT (($1).' || quote_ident(_name) || ')::text' INTO _value USING $1;
    END IF;
    _values[_attnum] :=  COALESCE('"' || replace(replace(_value, '"', '""'), '''', '''''') || '"', ''); 
  END LOOP;
  EXECUTE 'SELECT (' || quote_ident(pg_typeof($1)::text) || ' ''(' || array_to_string(_values,',') || ')'').*' INTO $1; 
  RETURN $1;
END;
$function$;