Thread: Number of parameters in a sql function

"Stan Ng" <stan@squaresoft.com> writes:
> I'm running into a limit problem with CREATE FUNCTION. Whenever I exceed
> the limit on parameters, somewhere around 12 for me, psql bombs on me
> with the "pqReadData() -- backend closed the channel unexpectedly" error
> message.  Is there any way to increase the parameter limit for
> functions?

It shouldn't be letting you get that high; the system limit is 8
parameters for a function.  (It looks to me like parse_func.c should
be, but is failing to, verify that the length of the parameter lists
it is passed are within bounds --- or else gram.y itself should complain
if the list is overlength.)

Increasing the limit would be rather a major project I suspect.
A quick look around the sources found a lot of dependencies, some
being symbolic constants (not all the same one :-() and some being
hard coded "8"s.  Ick.  Also, you would certainly be facing an initdb
and database reload, because the number of argument-type columns in
pg_proc would have to increase.

It'd be good to clean this up and replace pg_proc's fixed-size
proargtypes column with a variable-size "array of oid" column.
Any volunteers?

            regards, tom lane