PostgreSQL 8.1.23 Documentation | ||||
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libpq is the C application programmer's interface to PostgreSQL. libpq is a set of library functions that allow client programs to pass queries to the PostgreSQL backend server and to receive the results of these queries.
libpq is also the underlying engine for several other PostgreSQL application interfaces, including those written for C++, Perl, Python, Tcl and ECPG. So some aspects of libpq's behavior will be important to you if you use one of those packages. In particular, Section 28.11, Section 28.12 and Section 28.14 describe behavior that is visible to the user of any application that uses libpq.
Some short programs are included at the end of this chapter (Section 28.17) to show how to write programs that use libpq. There are also several complete examples of libpq applications in the directory src/test/examples in the source code distribution.
Client programs that use libpq must include the header file libpq-fe.h and must link with the libpq library.
The following functions deal with making a connection to a
PostgreSQL backend server. An
application program can have several backend connections open
at one time. (One reason to do that is to access more than one
database.) Each connection is represented by a PGconn
object, which is obtained from the function PQconnectdb
or PQsetdbLogin
. Note that these functions will
always return a non-null object pointer, unless perhaps there
is too little memory even to allocate the PGconn object. The PQstatus
function should be called to check
whether a connection was successfully made before queries are
sent via the connection object.
PQconnectdb
Makes a new connection to the database server.
PGconn *PQconnectdb(const char *conninfo);
This function opens a new database connection using
the parameters taken from the string conninfo. Unlike PQsetdbLogin
below, the parameter set
can be extended without changing the function signature,
so use of this function (or its nonblocking analogues
PQconnectStart
and
PQconnectPoll
) is preferred
for new application programming.
The passed string can be empty to use all default parameters, or it can contain one or more parameter settings separated by whitespace. Each parameter setting is in the form keyword = value. Spaces around the equal sign are optional. To write an empty value or a value containing spaces, surround it with single quotes, e.g., keyword = 'a value'. Single quotes and backslashes within the value must be escaped with a backslash, i.e., \' and \\.
The currently recognized parameter key words are:
Name of host to connect to. If this begins with a slash, it specifies Unix-domain communication rather than TCP/IP communication; the value is the name of the directory in which the socket file is stored. The default behavior when host is not specified is to connect to a Unix-domain socket in /tmp (or whatever socket directory was specified when PostgreSQL was built). On machines without Unix-domain sockets, the default is to connect to localhost.
Numeric IP address of host to connect to. This should be in the standard IPv4 address format, e.g., 172.28.40.9. If your machine supports IPv6, you can also use those addresses. TCP/IP communication is always used when a nonempty string is specified for this parameter.
Using hostaddr instead of host allows the application to avoid a host name look-up, which may be important in applications with time constraints. However, Kerberos authentication requires the host name. The following therefore applies: If host is specified without hostaddr, a host name lookup occurs. If hostaddr is specified without host, the value for hostaddr gives the remote address. When Kerberos is used, a reverse name query occurs to obtain the host name for Kerberos. If both host and hostaddr are specified, the value for hostaddr gives the remote address; the value for host is ignored, unless Kerberos is used, in which case that value is used for Kerberos authentication. (Note that authentication is likely to fail if libpq is passed a host name that is not the name of the machine at hostaddr.) Also, host rather than hostaddr is used to identify the connection in ~/.pgpass (see Section 28.12).
Without either a host name or host address, libpq will connect using a local Unix-domain socket; or on machines without Unix-domain sockets, it will attempt to connect to localhost.
Port number to connect to at the server host, or socket file name extension for Unix-domain connections.
The database name. Defaults to be the same as the user name.
PostgreSQL user name to connect as. Defaults to be the same as the operating system name of the user running the application.
Password to be used if the server demands password authentication.
Maximum wait for connection, in seconds (write as a decimal integer string). Zero or not specified means wait indefinitely. It is not recommended to use a timeout of less than 2 seconds.
Command-line options to be sent to the server.
Ignored (formerly, this specified where to send server debug output).
This option determines whether or with what priority an SSL connection will be negotiated with the server. There are four modes: disable will attempt only an unencrypted SSL connection; allow will negotiate, trying first a non-SSL connection, then if that fails, trying an SSL connection; prefer (the default) will negotiate, trying first an SSL connection, then if that fails, trying a regular non-SSL connection; require will try only an SSL connection.
If PostgreSQL is compiled without SSL support, using option require will cause an error, while options allow and prefer will be accepted but libpq will not in fact attempt an SSL connection.
This option is deprecated in favor of the sslmode setting.
If set to 1, an SSL connection to the server is required (this is equivalent to sslmode require). libpq will then refuse to connect if the server does not accept an SSL connection. If set to 0 (default), libpq will negotiate the connection type with the server (equivalent to sslmode prefer). This option is only available if PostgreSQL is compiled with SSL support.
Kerberos service name to use when authenticating with Kerberos 5. This must match the service name specified in the server configuration for Kerberos authentication to succeed. (See also Section 20.2.3.)
Service name to use for additional parameters. It specifies a service name in pg_service.conf that holds additional connection parameters. This allows applications to specify only a service name so connection parameters can be centrally maintained. See Section 28.13.
If any parameter is unspecified, then the corresponding environment variable (see Section 28.11) is checked. If the environment variable is not set either, then the indicated built-in defaults are used.
PQsetdbLogin
Makes a new connection to the database server.
PGconn *PQsetdbLogin(const char *pghost, const char *pgport, const char *pgoptions, const char *pgtty, const char *dbName, const char *login, const char *pwd);
This is the predecessor of PQconnectdb
with a fixed set of
parameters. It has the same functionality except that the
missing parameters will always take on default values.
Write NULL or an empty string for
any one of the fixed parameters that is to be
defaulted.
PQsetdb
Makes a new connection to the database server.
PGconn *PQsetdb(char *pghost, char *pgport, char *pgoptions, char *pgtty, char *dbName);
This is a macro that calls PQsetdbLogin
with null pointers for the
login and pwd parameters. It is provided for
backward compatibility with very old programs.
PQconnectStart
PQconnectPoll
Make a connection to the database server in a nonblocking manner.
PGconn *PQconnectStart(const char *conninfo);
PostgresPollingStatusType PQconnectPoll(PGconn *conn);
These two functions are used to open a connection to a
database server such that your application's thread of
execution is not blocked on remote I/O whilst doing so.
The point of this approach is that the waits for I/O to
complete can occur in the application's main loop, rather
than down inside PQconnectdb
, and so the application can
manage this operation in parallel with other
activities.
The database connection is made using the parameters
taken from the string conninfo,
passed to PQconnectStart
.
This string is in the same format as described above for
PQconnectdb
.
Neither PQconnectStart
nor PQconnectPoll
will
block, so long as a number of restrictions are met:
The hostaddr and
host parameters are used
appropriately to ensure that name and reverse name
queries are not made. See the documentation of these
parameters under PQconnectdb
above for details.
If you call PQtrace
,
ensure that the stream object into which you trace
will not block.
You ensure that the socket is in the appropriate
state before calling PQconnectPoll
, as described
below.
To begin a nonblocking connection request, call
conn = PQconnectStart("connection_info_string"). If
conn is null, then libpq has been unable to allocate a
new PGconn structure.
Otherwise, a valid PGconn
pointer is returned (though not yet representing a valid
connection to the database). On return from PQconnectStart
, call status = PQstatus(conn). If status equals CONNECTION_BAD, PQconnectStart
has failed.
If PQconnectStart
succeeds, the next stage is to poll libpq so that it may proceed with
the connection sequence. Use PQsocket(conn)
to obtain the descriptor
of the socket underlying the database connection. Loop
thus: If PQconnectPoll(conn)
last returned
PGRES_POLLING_READING, wait until
the socket is ready to read (as indicated by select()
, poll()
, or similar system function).
Then call PQconnectPoll(conn)
again. Conversely,
if PQconnectPoll(conn)
last
returned PGRES_POLLING_WRITING,
wait until the socket is ready to write, then call
PQconnectPoll(conn)
again.
If you have yet to call PQconnectPoll
, i.e., just after the
call to PQconnectStart
,
behave as if it last returned PGRES_POLLING_WRITING. Continue this loop
until PQconnectPoll(conn)
returns PGRES_POLLING_FAILED,
indicating the connection procedure has failed, or
PGRES_POLLING_OK, indicating the
connection has been successfully made.
At any time during connection, the status of the
connection may be checked by calling PQstatus
. If this gives CONNECTION_BAD, then the connection
procedure has failed; if it gives CONNECTION_OK
, then the connection is
ready. Both of these states are equally detectable from
the return value of PQconnectPoll
, described above. Other
states may also occur during (and only during) an
asynchronous connection procedure. These indicate the
current stage of the connection procedure and may be
useful to provide feedback to the user for example. These
statuses are:
Waiting for connection to be made.
Connection OK; waiting to send.
Waiting for a response from the server.
Received authentication; waiting for backend start-up to finish.
Negotiating SSL encryption.
Negotiating environment-driven parameter settings.
Note that, although these constants will remain (in order to maintain compatibility), an application should never rely upon these occurring in a particular order, or at all, or on the status always being one of these documented values. An application might do something like this:
switch(PQstatus(conn)) { case CONNECTION_STARTED: feedback = "Connecting..."; break; case CONNECTION_MADE: feedback = "Connected to server..."; break; . . . default: feedback = "Connecting..."; }
The connect_timeout
connection parameter is ignored when using PQconnectPoll
; it is the application's
responsibility to decide whether an excessive amount of
time has elapsed. Otherwise, PQconnectStart
followed by a
PQconnectPoll
loop is
equivalent to PQconnectdb
.
Note that if PQconnectStart
returns a non-null
pointer, you must call PQfinish
when you are finished with it,
in order to dispose of the structure and any associated
memory blocks. This must be done even if the connection
attempt fails or is abandoned.
PQconndefaults
Returns the default connection options.
PQconninfoOption *PQconndefaults(void); typedef struct { char *keyword; /* The keyword of the option */ char *envvar; /* Fallback environment variable name */ char *compiled; /* Fallback compiled in default value */ char *val; /* Option's current value, or NULL */ char *label; /* Label for field in connect dialog */ char *dispchar; /* Character to display for this field in a connect dialog. Values are: "" Display entered value as is "*" Password field - hide value "D" Debug option - don't show by default */ int dispsize; /* Field size in characters for dialog */ } PQconninfoOption;
Returns a connection options array. This may be used
to determine all possible PQconnectdb
options and their current
default values. The return value points to an array of
PQconninfoOption structures,
which ends with an entry having a null keyword pointer. The null pointer is
returned if memory could not be allocated. Note that the
current default values (val
fields) will depend on environment variables and other
context. Callers must treat the connection options data
as read-only.
After processing the options array, free it by passing
it to PQconninfoFree
. If
this is not done, a small amount of memory is leaked for
each call to PQconndefaults
.
PQfinish
Closes the connection to the server. Also frees memory used by the PGconn object.
void PQfinish(PGconn *conn);
Note that even if the server connection attempt fails
(as indicated by PQstatus
),
the application should call PQfinish
to free the memory used by the
PGconn object. The PGconn pointer must not be used again
after PQfinish
has been
called.
PQreset
Resets the communication channel to the server.
void PQreset(PGconn *conn);
This function will close the connection to the server and attempt to reestablish a new connection to the same server, using all the same parameters previously used. This may be useful for error recovery if a working connection is lost.
PQresetStart
PQresetPoll
Reset the communication channel to the server, in a nonblocking manner.
int PQresetStart(PGconn *conn);
PostgresPollingStatusType PQresetPoll(PGconn *conn);
These functions will close the connection to the
server and attempt to reestablish a new connection to the
same server, using all the same parameters previously
used. This may be useful for error recovery if a working
connection is lost. They differ from PQreset
(above) in that they act in a
nonblocking manner. These functions suffer from the same
restrictions as PQconnectStart
and PQconnectPoll
.
To initiate a connection reset, call PQresetStart
. If it returns 0, the
reset has failed. If it returns 1, poll the reset using
PQresetPoll
in exactly the
same way as you would create the connection using
PQconnectPoll
.