PostgreSQL: cancel query from C/C++ program

Question

I'm using PostgreSQL 8.3, and writing a program in C++ that uses the libpq API. I execute commands asynchronously with the PQsendQuery() function. I'm trying to implement a timeout processing feature. I implemented it by calling PQcancel() when the timeout expires. I tested it with a query that returns 100 000 rows (it lasts about 0.5 s) with a timeout of 1 ms, and found that instead of cancelling the command, PQcancel() blocks until the server finishes execution, then returns with a successful query.

I understand that the documentation says that even with a successful cancel request the query may still be executed. My problem is that PQcancel() blocks my thread of execution, which is not acceptable because I use asynchronous processing (using the Boost Asio framework) so my program, which may have other tasks to do other than executing the SQL query, runs only on one thread.

Is it normal that PQcancel() blocks? Is there any way to make a non-blocking cancel request?

Answer 1

I looked at the implementation of PQcancel. It creates a separate TCP connection to the server, that's why it is blocking. This code part is exactly the same in the newest version of PostgreSQL too. So I concluded that there is no way to make it nonblocking other than starting the cancel in a separate thread. This is also the preferred way of using this feature, as the cancel object is completely independent from the connection object thus it is completely thread safe to use.

Answer 2

It sounds like you are doing this on a blocking connection. Check the documentation for PQsetnonblocking, set the connection to non-blocking and you should be able to get PQCancel to return immediately. But it will also make all operations on the connection non-blocking.