Greg Stark <gsstark(at)mit(dot)edu> writes:
> Except not quite, since I think an out of memory error still means that
> backend exits instead of just that query failing.
Not at all! PG will recover from this perfectly well ... if it's given
the opportunity, rather than being SIGKILLed.
> It doesn't seem like a bad idea to have a max_memory parameter that if a
> backend ever exceeded it would immediately abort the current
> transaction.
See ulimit (or local equivalent).
regards, tom lane