Asynchronous Notification

PostgreSQL 7.3.4 Documentation
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# 1.6. Asynchronous Notification

PostgreSQL supports asynchronous notification via the `LISTEN` and `NOTIFY` commands. A backend registers its interest in a particular notification condition with the `LISTEN` command (and can stop listening with the `UNLISTEN` command). All backends listening on a particular condition will be notified asynchronously when a `NOTIFY` of that condition name is executed by any backend. No additional information is passed from the notifier to the listener. Thus, typically, any actual data that needs to be communicated is transferred through a database relation. Commonly the condition name is the same as the associated relation, but it is not necessary for there to be any associated relation.

`libpq` applications submit `LISTEN` and `UNLISTEN` commands as ordinary SQL command. Subsequently, arrival of `NOTIFY` messages can be detected by calling `PQnotifies`.

- `PQnotifies` Returns the next notification from a list of unhandled notification messages received from the backend. Returns NULL if there are no pending notifications. Once a notification is returned from `PQnotifies`, it is considered handled and will be removed from the list of notifications.

      PGnotify* PQnotifies(PGconn *conn);

      typedef struct pgNotify {
          char *relname;              /* name of relation containing data */
          int  be_pid;                /* process id of backend */
      } PGnotify;

  After processing a `PGnotify` object returned by `PQnotifies`, be sure to free it with `free()` to avoid a memory leak.

  > Note: In PostgreSQL 6.4 and later, the be_pid is that of the notifying backend, whereas in earlier versions it was always the PID of your own backend.

The second sample program gives an example of the use of asynchronous notification.

`PQnotifies()` does not actually read backend data; it just returns messages previously absorbed by another libpq function. In prior releases of libpq, the only way to ensure timely receipt of NOTIFY messages was to constantly submit queries, even empty ones, and then check `PQnotifies()` after each `PQexec()`. While this still works, it is deprecated as a waste of processing power.

A better way to check for NOTIFY messages when you have no useful queries to make is to call `PQconsumeInput()`, then check `PQnotifies()`. You can use `select()` to wait for backend data to arrive, thereby using no CPU power unless there is something to do. (See `PQsocket()` to obtain the file descriptor number to use with `select()`.) Note that this will work OK whether you submit queries with `PQsendQuery`/`PQgetResult` or simply use `PQexec`. You should, however, remember to check `PQnotifies()` after each `PQgetResult` or `PQexec`, to see if any notifications came in during the processing of the query.

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