Freeing transient memory in aggregate functions

From: Matt Magoffin <postgresql(dot)org(at)msqr(dot)us>
To: pgsql-general(at)lists(dot)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Freeing transient memory in aggregate functions
Date: 2021-12-20 20:26:47
Message-ID: C1897C9E-665C-4CDA-AE8C-8DA4119E6A12@msqr.us
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I have a question about trying to keep memory from growing too much in a C aggregate function with pass-by-reference types. I am trying to keep track of a last-seen value in my aggregate state, so I have code roughly doing this:

Datum current;
MemoryContext aggContext;
AggCheckCallContext(fcinfo, &aggContext);
old = MemoryContextSwitchTo(aggContext);

if (!PG_ARGISNULL(0)) {
current = PG_GETARG_DATUM(0);
state->last = datumCopy(&current, typbyval, typlen);
}
MemoryContextSwitchTo(old);

I’m essentially doing a datumCopy() on every non-null input value. I was wondering if there is a way to free the previously copied datum, since I don’t really need it anymore? Something like

if (!PG_ARGISNULL(0)) {
current = PG_GETARG_DATUM(0);
if (state->last != NULL) {
pfree(state->last);
}
state->last = datumCopy(&current, typbyval, typlen);
}

I wasn’t sure it was allowed to call pfree() like this. My actual function is dealing with array input values, and for large sets of inputs I didn’t want to grow memory use as large as the entire data set being aggregated.

Kind regards,
Matt

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