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From: bertrand HARTWIG <hartwig.bertrand@gmail.com>
To: Ron Johnson <ronljohnsonjr@gmail.com>
Cc: Pgsql-admin <pgsql-admin@lists.postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: How to definitively determine whether a statement is a SELECT statement?
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2026 07:07:17 +0200
Message-ID: <CD2A2F2D-30A2-450E-BA84-58A79860CEFF@gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CANzqJaA9uF7JEyqmJ6JVuoadnAqU2=56VXC7stqJeTdpm6ozFQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CANzqJaA9uF7JEyqmJ6JVuoadnAqU2=56VXC7stqJeTdpm6ozFQ@mail.gmail.com>

Hello,

You can use this python lib : pglast

from pglast import parse_sql
from pglast.ast import SelectStmt


def is_select_query(sql: str) -> bool:
    try:
        statements = parse_sql(sql)
    except Exception:
        return False  # SQL invalide

    if len(statements) != 1:
        return False  # Refuse plusieurs instructions SQL

    return isinstance(statements[0].stmt, SelectStmt)


print(is_select_query("SELECT * FROM users"))          # True
print(is_select_query("WITH x AS (SELECT 1) SELECT * FROM x"))  # True
print(is_select_query("INSERT INTO users(name) VALUES ('Alice')"))  # False
print(is_select_query("SELECT 1; DELETE FROM users"))  # False

Bertrand

> Le 31 août 2026 à 18:06, Ron Johnson <ronljohnsonjr@gmail.com> a écrit :
> 
> Sometimes, the developers add comments to the top of statements, and so we see that in pg_stat_activity.query as seen in this example:
> 
> select query
> from pg_stat_activity
> where pid = 1054079;
>  query  
> ----------------------------------------
> -- Some comment written by the developer
> SELECT blah blah FROM .blah
> 
> I could case-insensitively search pg_stat_activity.query for "SELECT " but that will fail if there is a SELECT in the CTE or subquery of a DELETE or UPDATE statement, and writing a parser to strip out all comments is a bit too much effort for a simple query.
> 
> --
> Death to <Redacted>, and butter sauce.
> Don't boil me, I'm still alive.
> <Redacted> lobster!

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