Why am I getting a syntax error at "RETURN result;" when creating a CartoDB pl/pgsql function?

Question

Despite CartoDB appearing to run PostGIS 2.2 (see below), it still doesn't support multi-point geometries in ST_Split.

SELECT postgis_full_version();

POSTGIS="2.2.0" GEOS="3.5.0-CAPI-1.9.0 r4084" PROJ="Rel. 4.8.0, 6 March 2012" 
GDAL="GDAL 1.11.0, released 2014/04/16" LIBXML="2.7.8" 
LIBJSON="UNKNOWN" (core procs from "2.2.0" need upgrade) 
RASTER (raster procs from "2.2.0" need upgrade)

So I tried to use the workaround function from this answer. However, though creating that function works on my local machine, I get the following error when I create the function in cartoDB:

syntax error at or near "result"``

Here's the function I'm creating:

DROP FUNCTION IF EXISTS split_line_multipoint(input_geom geometry, blade geometry);
CREATE FUNCTION split_line_multipoint(input_geom geometry, blade geometry)
  RETURNS geometry AS
$BODY$
    -- this function is a wrapper around the function ST_Split 
    -- to allow splitting multilines with multipoints
    --
    DECLARE
        result geometry;
        simple_blade geometry;
        blade_geometry_type text := GeometryType(blade);
        geom_geometry_type text := GeometryType(input_geom);
    BEGIN
        IF blade_geometry_type NOT ILIKE 'MULTI%' THEN
            RETURN ST_Split(input_geom, blade);
        ELSIF blade_geometry_type NOT ILIKE '%POINT' THEN
            RAISE NOTICE 'Need a Point/MultiPoint blade';
            RETURN NULL;
        END IF;

        IF geom_geometry_type NOT ILIKE '%LINESTRING' THEN
            RAISE NOTICE 'Need a LineString/MultiLineString input_geom';
            RETURN NULL;
        END IF;

        result := input_geom;           
        -- Loop on all the points in the blade
        FOR simple_blade IN SELECT (ST_Dump(ST_CollectionExtract(blade, 1))).geom
        LOOP
            -- keep splitting the previous result
            result := ST_CollectionExtract(ST_Split(result, simple_blade), 2);
        END LOOP;
        RETURN result;
    END;
$BODY$
LANGUAGE plpgsql IMMUTABLE;

Answer 1

Bit of a silly issue, seems that extra empty comment line at the beginning of the function was being interpreted differently by CartoDB, the last line below. By deleting that line, the function works.

CREATE FUNCTION split_line_multipoint(input_geom geometry, blade geometry)
  RETURNS geometry AS
  $BODY$
  -- this function is a wrapper around the function ST_Split 
  -- to allow splitting multilines with multipoints
  --