Re: Cost limit.

Shaun Thomas <sthomas(at)townnews(dot)com> writes:
> I can't seem to find it in the docs, so I'll ask here. Is there a
> way in postgres to impose a limit on query costs? I'd noticed some
> horribly disfigured queries hitting my poor database from one of our
> developers, and corrected him. But many of our users are not so
> easily contacted. What I want to know is if there's a configuration
> parameter or source patch that will allow me to disallow a query
> execution if the pre-execution cost estimation is too high.

Given the inherent inaccuracy of the cost estimates, I'd be real
hesitant to rely on them to suppress overly-expensive queries.

What might make sense is a time limit on execution (after x amount
of time, give up and cancel the query). No one's put such a thing
into the backend AFAIK. Note you could implement such a time limit
purely on the client side, which might be an easier and more flexible
way to go.

regards, tom lane