SRF in C

[Jeff Davis]

in section _37.7.1.2. RETURN NEXT_ of the docs, it says that "PL/pgSQL
stores the entire result set before returning from the function".

Is the same true for C, and if so, should we document it in
_33.7.9. Returning Sets from C-Language Functions_ ?

It could be important if someone wanted to return a huge amount of data
from an SRF and it was larger than available RAM.

Regards,
Jeff Davis
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[Bruce Momjian]

Jeff Davis wrote:

in section _37.7.1.2. RETURN NEXT_ of the docs, it says that "PL/pgSQL
stores the entire result set before returning from the function".

Is the same true for C, and if so, should we document it in
_33.7.9. Returning Sets from C-Language Functions_ ?

It could be important if someone wanted to return a huge amount of data
from an SRF and it was larger than available RAM.

I would assume the C function guys would know this was obvious.

--
Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
pg***@candle.ph a.pa.us | [phone]
+ If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road
+ Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

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[Joe Conway]

Bruce Momjian wrote:

Jeff Davis wrote:

in section _37.7.1.2. RETURN NEXT_ of the docs, it says that "PL/pgSQL
stores the entire result set before returning from the function".

Is the same true for C, and if so, should we document it in
_33.7.9. Returning Sets from C-Language Functions_ ?

It could be important if someone wanted to return a huge amount of data
from an SRF and it was larger than available RAM.

I would assume the C function guys would know this was obvious.

Actually, the situation is a bit more complicated. The section Jeff is
referring to is the one-row-at-a-time (SFRM_ValuePerC all) api that in
theory should not have to suffer from the mentioned limitation in
PL/pgSQL (which uses SFRM_Materializ e).

However, the one-row-at-a-time ends up being accumulated into a
tuplestore by ExecMakeTableFu nctionResult() anyway, effectively making
SFRM_ValuePerCa ll look just like SFRM_Materializ e, so the memeory
efficiency benefit from SFRM_ValuePerCa ll is lost :-(

We had talked about supporting both modes, and it has always been on my
long-term personal TODO to go back and address this. But since the
release of 7.3 I have yet to hear a single real life case where the
current SFRM_Materializ e mode has been a problem, so fixing this has
stayed low on my list.

Joe

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