Re: Example of a pg_gethostname() function. Feedback?

On Fri, Dec 23, 2011 at 8:22 PM, Craig Ringer <ringerc(at)ringerc(dot)id(dot)au> wrote:
> Only that it might be less hassle to wrap gethostname from pl/perl or
> pl/python rather than adding a new C function, particularly if this is only
> for DB testing and is not performance critical.
>
> --
> Craig Ringer

Hi Craig,

That was my first thought. However, in two of our servers, Perl is
mis-configured in some way that it causes the db to abort and crash
when a simple plperlu function is run. I reported a test case a few
months ago and that was Tom's conclusion and I didn't have the time or
inclination to pursue it. We rarely use any pl language other than
plpgsql, so I deemed it safer in this instance to avoid using plperlu
altogether.

Cheers,

Bricklen

Note, my coworker revised the C function slightly:
- Used HOST_NAME_MAX from limits.h, which is portable.
- Return an empty string on failure instead of "UNKNOWN" because that
makes more sense and allows for the host name "UNKNOWN".
- Fixed the comments.

/*
A PostgreSQL function for getting the hostname.

To compile... (make sure pg_config is in your PATH)
gcc -I$(pg_config --includedir-server) -fpic -c pg_gethostname.c
-L$(pg_config --libdir)
gcc --shared -o pg_gethostname.so pg_gethostname.o

To create the funciton in PostgreSQL...
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION pg_gethostname() RETURNS text
AS 'pg_gethostname'
LANGUAGE C IMMUTABLE STRICT;

*/
#include "postgres.h"
#include <limits.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <string.h>
#include "fmgr.h"

#include "utils/palloc.h"
#include "utils/elog.h"
#include "storage/bufpage.h"

#ifdef PG_MODULE_MAGIC
PG_MODULE_MAGIC;
#endif

PG_FUNCTION_INFO_V1( pg_gethostname );

Datum pg_gethostname( PG_FUNCTION_ARGS );

Datum pg_gethostname( PG_FUNCTION_ARGS )
{
text *t;
char server_hostname[HOST_NAME_MAX];
size_t length;

if ( gethostname( server_hostname, HOST_NAME_MAX ) != 0 )
{
// returning an empty string for the hostname if it fails makes
// sense because if it succeeded, we would have a name
server_hostname[0] = '\0';
}

length = strnlen( server_hostname, HOST_NAME_MAX );
t = (text *) palloc(VARHDRSZ + length );
SET_VARSIZE( t, VARHDRSZ + length );
memcpy( VARDATA(t), server_hostname, length );

PG_RETURN_TEXT_P( t );
}