Re: where does postgres keep the query result until it is returned?

On 20/09/2010 10:56 PM, Scott Ribe wrote:

>> - should this be documented?
>
> Doubtful. It has to do with very well known limits of 32-bit programs, applies to any use for a 1GB block regardless of where it comes from (network or disk), really has nothing to do with postgres, and the actual size at which you'll start to have problems with vary a good bit depending on: OS, libraries you link to, memory management library you use, memory management techniques you use, and to a very great extent your specific app and exactly what it does.

If nothing else, it'd be helpful to mention in the docs that storage of
individual values requires a contiguous memory block for each value.
It's not unusual to have data structures that can be used to store large
amounts of data structured as linked lists of extent blocks, so this is
really a perfectly reasonable question to ask.

--
Craig Ringer

Tech-related writing at http://soapyfrogs.blogspot.com/