31.5. Retrieving Query Results Row-By-Row

Ordinarily, libpq collects a SQL command's entire result and returns it to the application as a single PGresult. This can be unworkable for commands that return a large number of rows. For such cases, applications can use PQsendQuery and PQgetResult in single-row mode. In this mode, the result row(s) are returned to the application one at a time, as they are received from the server.

To enter single-row mode, call PQsetSingleRowMode immediately after a successful call of PQsendQuery (or a sibling function). This mode selection is effective only for the currently executing query. Then call PQgetResult repeatedly, until it returns null, as documented in Section 31.4. If the query returns any rows, they are returned as individual PGresult objects, which look like normal query results except for having status code PGRES_SINGLE_TUPLE instead of PGRES_TUPLES_OK. After the last row, or immediately if the query returns zero rows, a zero-row object with status PGRES_TUPLES_OK is returned; this is the signal that no more rows will arrive. (But note that it is still necessary to continue calling PQgetResult until it returns null.) All of these PGresult objects will contain the same row description data (column names, types, etc) that an ordinary PGresult object for the query would have. Each object should be freed with PQclear as usual.