Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2003 07:21:23 -0600 (MDT)
From: "scott.marlowe" <scott.marlowe@ihs.com>
To: Rudi Starcevic <rudi@oasis.net.au>
Cc: <pgsql-sql@postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: Text insert max. size.
In-Reply-To: <20030618120204.M81390@oasis.net.au>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.33.0306180716480.4100-100000@css120.ihs.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

On Wed, 18 Jun 2003, Rudi Starcevic wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I'm doing some planning for storing some xml data and am wondering
> what is the maximum amount I could insert with one SQL statement.

There's no limit to max SQL statement size in postgresql, but 
practically, you might want a REALLY big machine if you're gonna toss 
around 100 megs in a single query.

> For example if I read an xml file off the hard drive and wanted to store
> that in a text column what would be the largest file I could insert.
> How about a 10 KB file ?

How about 1 gig.  Nice limit, eh?  :-)

> I guess also each programing language may have limitations too.
> I this case I'm interested in using PHP.

Generally you're gonna hit a limit with the max memory size set in the 
php.ini file, which defaults to 8 meg max process size before abort.  You 
can crank this up so high your machine starts to swap out.

I'd guess PHP is likely limited to some number internally, but I've messed 
around with a hundred or so megs before.

If you wanna build a HUGE SQL query, you're likely better off to use fread 
and build the query in a file then run it with `psql dbname 
<myfilehere.sql` than to try and handle it in memory.

But for 10k, you won't have to worry.  Even 10 or 100 megs is doable if 
you're willing to reconfigure php to handle larger amounts of memory.