Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2025 23:43:13 +0800
From: Julien Rouhaud <rjuju123@gmail.com>
To: pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org
Subject: Cleaning up PREPARE query strings?
Message-ID: <aUwKEWGge5jWtaRX@jrouhaud>
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Hi,

Currently prepared statements store the whole query string that was submitted
by the client at the time of the PREPARE as-is.  This is usually fine, but if
that query was a multi-statement query string it can lead to a waste of memory.

There are some pattern that are more likely to have such overhead, mine being
an application with a fixed set of prepared statements that are sent at the
connection start using a single query to avoid extra round trips.

One naive example of the outcome is as follow:

#= PREPARE s1 AS SELECT 1\; PREPARE s2(text) AS SELECT oid FROM pg_class WHERE
relname = $1\; PREPARE s3(int, int) AS SELECT $1 + $2;
PREPARE
PREPARE
PREPARE

=# SELECT name, statement FROM pg_prepared_statements ;
 name |                                 statement
------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 s1   | PREPARE s1 AS SELECT 1; PREPARE s2(text) AS SELECT oid FROM pg_class WHERE+
      | relname = $1; PREPARE s3(int, int) AS SELECT $1 + $2;
 s2   | PREPARE s1 AS SELECT 1; PREPARE s2(text) AS SELECT oid FROM pg_class WHERE+
      | relname = $1; PREPARE s3(int, int) AS SELECT $1 + $2;
 s3   | PREPARE s1 AS SELECT 1; PREPARE s2(text) AS SELECT oid FROM pg_class WHERE+
      | relname = $1; PREPARE s3(int, int) AS SELECT $1 + $2;
(3 rows)

The more prepared statements you have the bigger the waste.  This is also not
particularly readable for people who want to rely on the pg_prepared_statements
views, as you need to parse the query again yourself to figure out what exactly
is the associated query.

I assume that some other patterns could lead to other kind of problems.  For
instance if the query string includes a prepared statement and some DML, it
could lead some automated program to replay both the PREPARE and DML when only
the PREPARE was intended.

I'm attaching a POC patch to fix that behavior by teaching PREPARE to clean the
passed query text the same way as pg_stat_statements.  Since it relies on the
location saved during parsing the overhead should be minimal, and only present
when some space can actually be saved.  Note that I first tried to have the
cleanup done in CreateCachedPlan so that it's done everywhere including things
like the extended protocol but this lead to too many issues so I ended up doing
it for an explicit PREPARE statement only.

With this patch applied, the above scenario gives this new output:

=# SELECT name, statement FROM pg_prepared_statements ;
 name |                     statement
------+----------------------------------------------------
 s1   | PREPARE s1 AS SELECT 1
 s2   | PREPARE s2(text) AS SELECT oid FROM pg_class WHERE+
      | relname = $1
 s3   | PREPARE s3(int, int) AS SELECT $1 + $2
(3 rows)

One possible issue is that any comment present at the beginning of the query
text would be discarded.  I'm not sure if that's something used by e.g.
pg_hint_plan, but if yes it's always possible to put the statement in front of
the SELECT (or other actual first keyword) rather than the PREPARE itself to
preserve it.

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	filename=v1-0001-Cleanup-explicit-PREPARE-query-strings.patch

From bab4d858e18cdd50713ae430e28499ca2acab441 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Julien Rouhaud <julien.rouhaud@free.fr>
Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2025 22:31:52 +0800
Subject: [PATCH v1] Cleanup explicit PREPARE query strings

When a multi statements query string contains one PREPARE statement (or
multiple), the whole query string was saved in the cached plan.  This is
wasteful as that string can be artitrarily big, but it can also confusing as
some other parts like pg_prepared_statements will output the saved query string
as-is.

This commit changes this behavior and only stores the part of the query string
that correspond to any given PREPARED statement, similarly to how it's already
done in pg_stat_statements.
---
 contrib/auto_explain/t/001_auto_explain.pl |  8 ++--
 src/backend/commands/prepare.c             | 43 +++++++++++++++++++--
 src/test/regress/expected/prepare.out      | 44 +++++++++++++---------
 src/test/regress/sql/prepare.sql           |  2 +-
 4 files changed, 72 insertions(+), 25 deletions(-)

diff --git a/contrib/auto_explain/t/001_auto_explain.pl b/contrib/auto_explain/t/001_auto_explain.pl
index 6af5ac1da18..535c4770095 100644
--- a/contrib/auto_explain/t/001_auto_explain.pl
+++ b/contrib/auto_explain/t/001_auto_explain.pl
@@ -60,7 +60,7 @@ $log_contents = query_log($node,
 
 like(
 	$log_contents,
-	qr/Query Text: PREPARE get_proc\(name\) AS SELECT \* FROM pg_proc WHERE proname = \$1;/,
+	qr/Query Text: PREPARE get_proc\(name\) AS SELECT \* FROM pg_proc WHERE proname = \$1/,
 	"prepared query text logged, text mode");
 
 like(
@@ -82,7 +82,7 @@ $log_contents = query_log(
 
 like(
 	$log_contents,
-	qr/Query Text: PREPARE get_type\(name\) AS SELECT \* FROM pg_type WHERE typname = \$1;/,
+	qr/Query Text: PREPARE get_type\(name\) AS SELECT \* FROM pg_type WHERE typname = \$1/,
 	"prepared query text logged, text mode");
 
 like(
@@ -98,7 +98,7 @@ $log_contents = query_log(
 
 like(
 	$log_contents,
-	qr/Query Text: PREPARE get_type\(name\) AS SELECT \* FROM pg_type WHERE typname = \$1;/,
+	qr/Query Text: PREPARE get_type\(name\) AS SELECT \* FROM pg_type WHERE typname = \$1/,
 	"prepared query text logged, text mode");
 
 unlike(
@@ -164,7 +164,7 @@ $log_contents = query_log(
 
 like(
 	$log_contents,
-	qr/"Query Text": "PREPARE get_class\(name\) AS SELECT \* FROM pg_class WHERE relname = \$1;"/,
+	qr/"Query Text": "PREPARE get_class\(name\) AS SELECT \* FROM pg_class WHERE relname = \$1"/,
 	"prepared query text logged, json mode");
 
 like(
diff --git a/src/backend/commands/prepare.c b/src/backend/commands/prepare.c
index 34b6410d6a2..11b330ab73d 100644
--- a/src/backend/commands/prepare.c
+++ b/src/backend/commands/prepare.c
@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@
 #include "commands/prepare.h"
 #include "funcapi.h"
 #include "nodes/nodeFuncs.h"
+#include "nodes/queryjumble.h"
 #include "parser/parse_coerce.h"
 #include "parser/parse_collate.h"
 #include "parser/parse_expr.h"
@@ -64,6 +65,7 @@ PrepareQuery(ParseState *pstate, PrepareStmt *stmt,
 	Oid		   *argtypes = NULL;
 	int			nargs;
 	List	   *query_list;
+	const char *new_query;
 
 	/*
 	 * Disallow empty-string statement name (conflicts with protocol-level
@@ -80,14 +82,49 @@ PrepareQuery(ParseState *pstate, PrepareStmt *stmt,
 	 */
 	rawstmt = makeNode(RawStmt);
 	rawstmt->stmt = stmt->query;
-	rawstmt->stmt_location = stmt_location;
-	rawstmt->stmt_len = stmt_len;
+
+	/*
+	 * Extract the query text if possible.
+	 *
+	 * If we have a statement location, we can extract the relevant part of the
+	 * possibly multi-statement query string.  If not just use what we were
+	 * given.
+	 */
+	if (stmt_location < 0)
+	{
+		rawstmt->stmt_location = stmt_location;
+		rawstmt->stmt_len = stmt_len;
+		new_query = pstate->p_sourcetext;
+	}
+	else
+	{
+		const char *cleaned;
+		char	   *tmp;
+
+		rawstmt->stmt_len = stmt_len;
+		cleaned = CleanQuerytext(pstate->p_sourcetext, &stmt_location,
+								 &rawstmt->stmt_len);
+
+		if (rawstmt->stmt_len == 0)
+			rawstmt->stmt_len = strlen(cleaned);
+
+		/*
+		 * CleanQuerytext() removes any leading whitespace and returns a
+		 * pointer to the first actual character, so the cleaned query string
+		 * is guaranteed to start at offset 0.
+		 */
+		rawstmt->stmt_location = 0;
+		tmp = palloc(rawstmt->stmt_len + 1);
+		strlcpy(tmp, cleaned, rawstmt->stmt_len + 1);
+
+		new_query = tmp;
+	}
 
 	/*
 	 * Create the CachedPlanSource before we do parse analysis, since it needs
 	 * to see the unmodified raw parse tree.
 	 */
-	plansource = CreateCachedPlan(rawstmt, pstate->p_sourcetext,
+	plansource = CreateCachedPlan(rawstmt, new_query,
 								  CreateCommandTag(stmt->query));
 
 	/* Transform list of TypeNames to array of type OIDs */
diff --git a/src/test/regress/expected/prepare.out b/src/test/regress/expected/prepare.out
index 5815e17b39c..c645a4e5d0e 100644
--- a/src/test/regress/expected/prepare.out
+++ b/src/test/regress/expected/prepare.out
@@ -6,7 +6,17 @@ SELECT name, statement, parameter_types, result_types FROM pg_prepared_statement
 ------+-----------+-----------------+--------------
 (0 rows)
 
-PREPARE q1 AS SELECT 1 AS a;
+SELECT 'bingo'\;  PREPARE q1 AS SELECT 1 AS a \; SELECT 42;
+ ?column? 
+----------
+ bingo
+(1 row)
+
+ ?column? 
+----------
+       42
+(1 row)
+
 EXECUTE q1;
  a 
 ---
@@ -14,9 +24,9 @@ EXECUTE q1;
 (1 row)
 
 SELECT name, statement, parameter_types, result_types FROM pg_prepared_statements;
- name |          statement           | parameter_types | result_types 
-------+------------------------------+-----------------+--------------
- q1   | PREPARE q1 AS SELECT 1 AS a; | {}              | {integer}
+ name |          statement          | parameter_types | result_types 
+------+-----------------------------+-----------------+--------------
+ q1   | PREPARE q1 AS SELECT 1 AS a | {}              | {integer}
 (1 row)
 
 -- should fail
@@ -33,18 +43,18 @@ EXECUTE q1;
 
 PREPARE q2 AS SELECT 2 AS b;
 SELECT name, statement, parameter_types, result_types FROM pg_prepared_statements;
- name |          statement           | parameter_types | result_types 
-------+------------------------------+-----------------+--------------
- q1   | PREPARE q1 AS SELECT 2;      | {}              | {integer}
- q2   | PREPARE q2 AS SELECT 2 AS b; | {}              | {integer}
+ name |          statement          | parameter_types | result_types 
+------+-----------------------------+-----------------+--------------
+ q1   | PREPARE q1 AS SELECT 2      | {}              | {integer}
+ q2   | PREPARE q2 AS SELECT 2 AS b | {}              | {integer}
 (2 rows)
 
 -- sql92 syntax
 DEALLOCATE PREPARE q1;
 SELECT name, statement, parameter_types, result_types FROM pg_prepared_statements;
- name |          statement           | parameter_types | result_types 
-------+------------------------------+-----------------+--------------
- q2   | PREPARE q2 AS SELECT 2 AS b; | {}              | {integer}
+ name |          statement          | parameter_types | result_types 
+------+-----------------------------+-----------------+--------------
+ q2   | PREPARE q2 AS SELECT 2 AS b | {}              | {integer}
 (1 row)
 
 DEALLOCATE PREPARE q2;
@@ -168,20 +178,20 @@ SELECT name, statement, parameter_types, result_types FROM pg_prepared_statement
 ------+------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  q2   | PREPARE q2(text) AS                                             +| {text}                                             | {name,boolean,boolean}
       |         SELECT datname, datistemplate, datallowconn             +|                                                    | 
-      |         FROM pg_database WHERE datname = $1;                     |                                                    | 
+      |         FROM pg_database WHERE datname = $1                      |                                                    | 
  q3   | PREPARE q3(text, int, float, boolean, smallint) AS              +| {text,integer,"double precision",boolean,smallint} | {integer,integer,integer,integer,integer,integer,integer,integer,integer,integer,integer,integer,integer,name,name,name}
       |         SELECT * FROM tenk1 WHERE string4 = $1 AND (four = $2 OR+|                                                    | 
       |         ten = $3::bigint OR true = $4 OR odd = $5::int)         +|                                                    | 
-      |         ORDER BY unique1;                                        |                                                    | 
+      |         ORDER BY unique1                                         |                                                    | 
  q5   | PREPARE q5(int, text) AS                                        +| {integer,text}                                     | {integer,integer,integer,integer,integer,integer,integer,integer,integer,integer,integer,integer,integer,name,name,name}
       |         SELECT * FROM tenk1 WHERE unique1 = $1 OR stringu1 = $2 +|                                                    | 
-      |         ORDER BY unique1;                                        |                                                    | 
+      |         ORDER BY unique1                                         |                                                    | 
  q6   | PREPARE q6 AS                                                   +| {integer,name}                                     | {integer,integer,integer,integer,integer,integer,integer,integer,integer,integer,integer,integer,integer,name,name,name}
-      |     SELECT * FROM tenk1 WHERE unique1 = $1 AND stringu1 = $2;    |                                                    | 
+      |     SELECT * FROM tenk1 WHERE unique1 = $1 AND stringu1 = $2     |                                                    | 
  q7   | PREPARE q7(unknown) AS                                          +| {path}                                             | {text,path}
-      |     SELECT * FROM road WHERE thepath = $1;                       |                                                    | 
+      |     SELECT * FROM road WHERE thepath = $1                        |                                                    | 
  q8   | PREPARE q8 AS                                                   +| {integer,name}                                     | 
-      |     UPDATE tenk1 SET stringu1 = $2 WHERE unique1 = $1;           |                                                    | 
+      |     UPDATE tenk1 SET stringu1 = $2 WHERE unique1 = $1            |                                                    | 
 (6 rows)
 
 -- test DEALLOCATE ALL;
diff --git a/src/test/regress/sql/prepare.sql b/src/test/regress/sql/prepare.sql
index c6098dc95ce..0e7fe44725e 100644
--- a/src/test/regress/sql/prepare.sql
+++ b/src/test/regress/sql/prepare.sql
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
 
 SELECT name, statement, parameter_types, result_types FROM pg_prepared_statements;
 
-PREPARE q1 AS SELECT 1 AS a;
+SELECT 'bingo'\;  PREPARE q1 AS SELECT 1 AS a \; SELECT 42;
 EXECUTE q1;
 
 SELECT name, statement, parameter_types, result_types FROM pg_prepared_statements;
-- 
2.52.0


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