| PostgreSQL 8.3.23 Documentation | ||||
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The PQexec function is adequate
for submitting commands in normal, synchronous applications. It
has a couple of deficiencies, however, that can be of importance
to some users:
PQexec waits for the command
to be completed. The application might have other work to do
(such as maintaining a user interface), in which case it
won't want to block waiting for the response.
Since the execution of the client application is suspended while it waits for the result, it is hard for the application to decide that it would like to try to cancel the ongoing command. (It can be done from a signal handler, but not otherwise.)
PQexec can return only one
PGresult structure. If the
submitted command string contains multiple SQL commands, all but the last PGresult are discarded by PQexec.
Applications that do not like these limitations can instead
use the underlying functions that PQexec is built from: PQsendQuery and PQgetResult. There are also PQsendQueryParams, PQsendPrepare, PQsendQueryPrepared, PQsendDescribePrepared, and PQsendDescribePortal, which can be used with
PQgetResult to duplicate the
functionality of PQexecParams,
PQprepare, PQexecPrepared, PQdescribePrepared, and PQdescribePortal respectively.
PQsendQuery Submits a command to the server without waiting for the
result(s). 1 is returned if the command was successfully
dispatched and 0 if not (in which case, use PQerrorMessage to get more information
about the failure).
int PQsendQuery(PGconn *conn, const char *command);
After successfully calling PQsendQuery, call PQgetResult one or more times to obtain
the results. PQsendQuery
cannot be called again (on the same connection) until
PQgetResult has returned a
null pointer, indicating that the command is done.
PQsendQueryParams Submits a command and separate parameters to the server without waiting for the result(s).
int PQsendQueryParams(PGconn *conn,
const char *command,
int nParams,
const Oid *paramTypes,
const char * const *paramValues,
const int *paramLengths,
const int *paramFormats,
int resultFormat);
This is equivalent to PQsendQuery except that query parameters
can be specified separately from the query string. The
function's parameters are handled identically to
PQexecParams. Like
PQexecParams, it will not
work on 2.0-protocol connections, and it allows only one
command in the query string.
PQsendPrepare Sends a request to create a prepared statement with the given parameters, without waiting for completion.
int PQsendPrepare(PGconn *conn,
const char *stmtName,
const char *query,
int nParams,
const Oid *paramTypes);
This is an asynchronous version of PQprepare: it returns 1 if it was able to
dispatch the request, and 0 if not. After a successful
call, call PQgetResult to
determine whether the server successfully created the
prepared statement. The function's parameters are handled
identically to PQprepare.
Like PQprepare, it will not
work on 2.0-protocol connections.
PQsendQueryPrepared
Sends a request to execute a prepared statement with given parameters, without waiting for the result(s).
int PQsendQueryPrepared(PGconn *conn,
const char *stmtName,
int nParams,
const char * const *paramValues,
const int *paramLengths,
const int *paramFormats,
int resultFormat);
This is similar to PQsendQueryParams, but the command to be
executed is specified by naming a previously-prepared
statement, instead of giving a query string. The function's
parameters are handled identically to PQexecPrepared. Like PQexecPrepared, it will not work on
2.0-protocol connections.
PQsendDescribePrepared
Submits a request to obtain information about the specified prepared statement, without waiting for completion.
int PQsendDescribePrepared(PGconn *conn, const char *stmtName);
This is an asynchronous version of PQdescribePrepared: it returns 1 if it
was able to dispatch the request, and 0 if not. After a
successful call, call PQgetResult to obtain the results. The
function's parameters are handled identically to
PQdescribePrepared. Like
PQdescribePrepared, it will
not work on 2.0-protocol connections.
PQsendDescribePortal
Submits a request to obtain information about the specified portal, without waiting for completion.
int PQsendDescribePortal(PGconn *conn, const char *portalName);
This is an asynchronous version of PQdescribePortal: it returns 1 if it was
able to dispatch the request, and 0 if not. After a
successful call, call PQgetResult to obtain the results. The
function's parameters are handled identically to
PQdescribePortal. Like
PQdescribePortal, it will not
work on 2.0-protocol connections.
PQgetResult Waits for the next result from a prior PQsendQuery, PQsendQueryParams, PQsendPrepare, or PQsendQueryPrepared call, and returns it.
A null pointer is returned when the command is complete and
there will be no more results.
PGresult *PQgetResult(PGconn *conn);
PQgetResult must be called
repeatedly until it returns a null pointer, indicating that
the command is done. (If called when no command is active,
PQgetResult will just return
a null pointer at once.) Each non-null result from
PQgetResult should be
processed using the same PGresult accessor functions previously
described. Don't forget to free each result object with
PQclear when done with it.
Note that PQgetResult will
block only if a command is active and the necessary
response data has not yet been read by PQconsumeInput.
Using PQsendQuery and
PQgetResult solves one of
PQexec's problems: If a command
string contains multiple SQL
commands, the results of those commands can be obtained
individually. (This allows a simple form of overlapped
processing, by the way: the client can be handling the results of
one command while the server is still working on later queries in
the same command string.) However, calling PQgetResult will still cause the client to
block until the server completes the next SQL command. This can be avoided by proper
use of two more functions:
PQconsumeInput If input is available from the server, consume it.
int PQconsumeInput(PGconn *conn);
PQconsumeInput normally
returns 1 indicating "no error",
but returns 0 if there was some kind of trouble (in which
case PQerrorMessage can be
consulted). Note that the result does not say whether any
input data was actually collected. After calling
PQconsumeInput, the
application can check PQisBusy and/or PQnotifies to see if their state has
changed.
PQconsumeInput can be
called even if the application is not prepared to deal with
a result or notification just yet. The function will read
available data and save it in a buffer, thereby causing a
select() read-ready
indication to go away. The application can thus use
PQconsumeInput to clear the
select() condition
immediately, and then examine the results at leisure.
PQisBusy Returns 1 if a command is busy, that is, PQgetResult would block waiting for
input. A 0 return indicates that PQgetResult can be called with assurance
of not blocking.
int PQisBusy(PGconn *conn);
PQisBusy will not itself
attempt to read data from the server; therefore
PQconsumeInput must be
invoked first, or the busy state will never end.
A typical application using these functions will have a main
loop that uses select() or
poll() to wait for all the
conditions that it must respond to. One of the conditions will be
input available from the server, which in terms of select() means readable data on the file
descriptor identified by PQsocket.
When the main loop detects input ready, it should call
PQconsumeInput to read the input.
It can then call PQisBusy, followed
by PQgetResult if PQisBusy returns false (0). It can also call
PQnotifies to detect NOTIFY messages (see Section 30.7).
A client that uses PQsendQuery/PQgetResult can also attempt to cancel a
command that is still being processed by the server; see Section 30.5. But regardless of the
return value of PQcancel, the
application must continue with the normal result-reading sequence
using PQgetResult. A successful
cancellation will simply cause the command to terminate sooner
than it would have otherwise.
By using the functions described above, it is possible to avoid blocking while waiting for input from the database server. However, it is still possible that the application will block waiting to send output to the server. This is relatively uncommon but can happen if very long SQL commands or data values are sent. (It is much more probable if the application sends data via COPY IN, however.) To prevent this possibility and achieve completely nonblocking database operation, the following additional functions can be used.
PQsetnonblocking Sets the nonblocking status of the connection.
int PQsetnonblocking(PGconn *conn, int arg);
Sets the state of the connection to nonblocking if arg is 1, or blocking if arg is 0. Returns 0 if OK, -1 if error.
In the nonblocking state, calls to PQsendQuery, PQputline, PQputnbytes, and PQendcopy will not block but instead
return an error if they need to be called again.
Note that PQexec does not
honor nonblocking mode; if it is called, it will act in
blocking fashion anyway.
PQisnonblocking Returns the blocking status of the database connection.
int PQisnonblocking(const PGconn *conn);
Returns 1 if the connection is set to nonblocking mode and 0 if blocking.
PQflush Attempts to flush any queued output data to the server. Returns 0 if successful (or if the send queue is empty), -1 if it failed for some reason, or 1 if it was unable to send all the data in the send queue yet (this case can only occur if the connection is nonblocking).
int PQflush(PGconn *conn);
After sending any command or data on a nonblocking connection,
call PQflush. If it returns 1, wait
for the socket to be write-ready and call it again; repeat until
it returns 0. Once PQflush returns
0, wait for the socket to be read-ready and then read the
response as described above.