Thread: Some quick notes about extending libpq for new protocol

Some quick notes about extending libpq for new protocol

From
Tom Lane
Date:
Here are my notes about what to do to extend libpq's API to support the
new features of the 3.0 frontend/backend protocol.  Not very polished
but I trust you can follow it.  Any objections?
        regards, tom lane


LIBPQ updates for new protocol
------------------------------

Needed:

* Access to individual fields of an error/notice result; also some setting to
determine how verbose PQerrorMessage is
char *PQerrorField(conn, char fieldcode)char *PQresultErrorField(const PGresult *res, char fieldcode)

fieldcode is as per the protocol spec.  NULL is returned if no such field in
current result (this includes case where current result isn't an error).

Errors generated internally by libpq will have severity, primary message,
and SQLSTATE, but typically no other fields.

Seems there is no alternative for Notice except to invent a new callback
level :-(.  PQnoticeProcessor API doesn't get the job done.
typedef PQnoticeReceiver (PGconn *conn, PGresult *res, void *arg);PQsetNoticeReceiver(conn, function, arg)

res will be a NONFATAL_ERROR result from which PQresultErrorField() calls
may be used to extract the individual fields.  Default version just gets
PQresultErrorMessage() and passes it to connection's noticeProcessor.
PQsetErrorVerbosity(conn, PQERRORS_TERSE/DEFAULT/VERBOSE)

TERSE: single-line error (severity, primary text, and position only)
DEFAULT: above plus any detail, hint, or context fields (backwards compatible)
VERBOSE: all available data

* Transaction status inquiry; also access to ParameterStatus.  (Provide way to
get at server version unconditionally, so that apps do not need fallback code)
enum PQtransactionStatus(conn)Returns PQTRANS_UNKNOWN, IDLE, INTRANS, INERRORUNKNOWN is returned if on pre-3.0 protocol
orbad connection
 
const char *PQparameterStatus(conn, const char *paramName)    returns NULL if param not available, sets errmsg
const char *PQserverVersion(conn)    uses paramstatus if possible, else does query
int PQprotocolVersion(conn)    returns protocol major version (2 or 3)

* Representation of binary results?
seems to just need some notes?  Old way is not too incompatibleexcept for endianness issues.

* Extended query support: for the moment I'm just going to provide an
extension to allow access to out-of-line parameters and binary format.
Later maybe add some stuff to support separate Parse, Bind, Execute steps.
PQexecParams(conn, const char *query,         int nParams,         Oid *paramTypes, -- may be NULL to leave all
unspecified        char **paramValues,         int *paramLengths, -- may be NULL if all text         int *paramFormats,
--NULL means all text         int resultFormat)  -- zero or one
 

a NULL value of param[i] means that param is NULL, else it is pointer
to either null-terminated C string (if text) or binary value of length
paramLengths[i] (if binary).  Note paramLengths is not examined for
text-format params.  Semantics similar to PQexec, but cannot put multiple
commands into query string.  Note we don't allow per-column result format
selection, since we don't have a good way to tell the number of result
columns.

For asynchronous processing, also add PQsendQueryParams, with same parameters
but behaves similarly to PQsendQuery; follow with PQgetResult.

Each of these sends Parse/Bind/DescribePortal/Execute/Sync using unnamed stmt
and portal.  Will fail on old-protocol connections.

* Better COPY API
COPY OUT and COPY IN PGresults now carry #cols and format info.(only if new-protocol conn, else return "zero cols")
PQexec will cope with getting out of pre-existing COPY state (bydiscarding data or sending CopyDone)
PQputline/PQputnbytes reject if not in COPY IN state, else theywrap the data as a CopyData message and send it.  It is
uptoapplication to send valid data for the COPY operation.
 
int PQputCopyData(conn, const char *buffer, int nbytes, bool async)Functionally similar to PQputnbytes,but preferred
fornew codingReturns 1: data sent or queued    0: data not sent, try again later (only if async is true)    -1:
trouble,use PQerrorMessage to find out whyDo NOT send "\." as terminator.
 
int PQputCopyEnd(conn, const char *error, bool async)Ends a COPY IN successfully if error is NULL, else makes it
failwithgiven null-terminated string as the error message.Same return conventions as PQputCopyData.  After
successfulcompletion,call PQgetResult to check success or failure of COPYcommand.  (If doing async COPY, can wait in
theusual way forPQgetResult to be ready.)
 
PQgetCopyData(conn, char **buffer, bool async)    returns a malloc'd chunk of data if successfulCases    got some data
     return value is # bytes received    data not yet avail (only in async case)        return is 0, *buffer is NULL
endof copy in operation (incl. error detected)        return is -1, *buffer is NULL        now call PQgetResultThe
returnedbuffer will be null-terminated, but this is onlyhelpful for text copy.  The returned data always corresponds
toonedata row.
 
PQendcopy: deprecated, but equivalent to PQputCopyEnd (if COPY IN    state) followed by synchronous GetResult.

* Better FunctionCall API?
nah, just deprecate in favor of invoking the function viaPQexecParams().

* Access to Notification param field
add a third field to PGnotify struct

* Access to source table's OID and column number in RowDescription, also per-column format codes
Oid PQftable(const PGresult *res, int col)int PQftablecol(const PGresult *res, int col)int PQfformat(const PGresult
*res,int col)
 

PQbinaryTuples is now deprecated in favor of looking at PQfformat.
PQbinaryTuples will return true only if all columns of the result
are binary format.


Re: Some quick notes about extending libpq for new protocol

From
Jonathan Gardner
Date:
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On Monday 02 June 2003 10:19, Tom Lane wrote:
> * Better FunctionCall API?
>
>     nah, just deprecate in favor of invoking the function via
>     PQexecParams().
>

I'll admit -- the current state of PQfn is practically unuseable. However, the
idea is pretty cool. I think it would be nice to have a direct function call
mechanism that bypasses the parser.

Of course, I don't think I understand completely what PQexecParams would do...
:-(

- --
Jonathan Gardner <jgardner@jonathangardner.net>
(was jgardn@alumni.washington.edu)
Live Free, Use Linux!
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Re: Some quick notes about extending libpq for new protocol

From
Tom Lane
Date:
Jonathan Gardner <jgardner@jonathangardner.net> writes:
> I'll admit -- the current state of PQfn is practically unuseable. However, the 
> idea is pretty cool. I think it would be nice to have a direct function call 
> mechanism that bypasses the parser.

The ability to prepare a "SELECT foo($1, $2, ...)" statement pretty much
eliminates any performance advantage that PQfn once had.  While I've not
had the opportunity to do performance tests, I'd think that a binary
BIND and EXECUTE of such a statement would be about on a par with
FunctionCall.
        regards, tom lane


Re: Some quick notes about extending libpq for new

From
Peter Eisentraut
Date:
Tom Lane writes:

> * Access to individual fields of an error/notice result; also some setting to
> determine how verbose PQerrorMessage is
>
>     char *PQerrorField(conn, char fieldcode)
>     char *PQresultErrorField(const PGresult *res, char fieldcode)
>
> fieldcode is as per the protocol spec.  NULL is returned if no such field in
> current result (this includes case where current result isn't an error).

In the old protocol there used to be support for more then one error
arriving, in which case they were concatenated.  What is happening with
that?

>     PQsetErrorVerbosity(conn, PQERRORS_TERSE/DEFAULT/VERBOSE)
>
> TERSE: single-line error (severity, primary text, and position only)

Shouldn't the position be available as a separate field, so client
programs can do their own highlighting or whatnot?

> DEFAULT: above plus any detail, hint, or context fields (backwards compatible)
> VERBOSE: all available data

One more thing: It has always annoyed me that PQerrorMessage() returns the
text with a trailing newline.  Since we now redefined newlines to be
paragraph breaks, should this be changed (in a backward-compatible
fashion)?

-- 
Peter Eisentraut   peter_e@gmx.net



Re: Some quick notes about extending libpq for new protocol

From
Tom Lane
Date:
Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> writes:
> In the old protocol there used to be support for more then one error
> arriving, in which case they were concatenated.  What is happening with
> that?

That still works with respect to libpq's internally-generated errors,
which is as far as I know the only case that the concatenation was
actually useful for.

> Shouldn't the position be available as a separate field, so client
> programs can do their own highlighting or whatnot?

Yes, it is.  The question here is what the backwards-compatible
PQerrorMessage() call should produce.  Do you think position should
get left out of that?  My thought was that the "terse" form should
carry everything that is likely to fit on one line, and position
would usually fit on the same line with "syntax error".  Also, an app
that is using PQerrorMessage() rather than constructing its own
error message from the individual fields is likely not gonna do anything
as helpful as highlighting ...

> One more thing: It has always annoyed me that PQerrorMessage() returns the
> text with a trailing newline.  Since we now redefined newlines to be
> paragraph breaks, should this be changed (in a backward-compatible
> fashion)?

The backwards-compatible part *is* that PQerrorMessage() returns text
with a trailing newline.  If you fetch the individual fields, they don't
have trailing newlines.
        regards, tom lane