Doc: document libpq's restriction to INT_MAX rows in a PGresult.

tglsfdc · tglsfdc · commit 2a82170a56cb · 2017-08-29T15:38:46.000-04:00
As long as PQntuples, PQgetvalue, etc, use "int" for row numbers, we're pretty much stuck with this limitation. The documentation formerly stated that the result of PQntuples "might overflow on 32-bit operating systems", which is just nonsense: that's not where the overflow would happen, and if you did reach an overflow it would not be on a 32-bit machine, because you'd have OOM'd long since. Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/CA+FnnTxyLWyjY1goewmJNxC==HQCCF4fKkoCTa9qR36oRAHDPw@mail.gmail.com
diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/libpq.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/libpq.sgml
@@ -2763,9 +2763,10 @@ void PQclear(PGresult *res);
 
      <listitem>
       <para>
-       Returns the number of rows (tuples) in the query result.  Because
-       it returns an integer result, large result sets might overflow the
-       return value on 32-bit operating systems.
+       Returns the number of rows (tuples) in the query result.
+       (Note that <structname>PGresult</> objects are limited to no more
+       than <literal>INT_MAX</> rows, so an <type>int</> result is
+       sufficient.)
 
 <synopsis>
 int PQntuples(const PGresult *res);
