Re: Extending PostgreSQL in C or C++

Andreas Pflug <andreas.pflug@web.de>

From: Andreas Pflug <Andreas.Pflug@web.de>
To: Sebastien Lemieux <slemieux@elitra.com>
Cc: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
Date: 2003-06-17T21:51:34Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
David Blasby wrote:

> Sebastien Lemieux wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>>   I need to extend postgreSQL to support some specific function I 
>> will code in C (ideally C++ if it can work!). 
>
>
> Be very carefull with using C++ functions inside postgresql.  If the 
> C++ code throws an exception the postgresql backend will get a SIGABRT 
> and terminate.
>
> You can solve this by linking the std c++ library to the postmaster.  
> We tried everything we could think of to fix this, but this was the 
> only solution that worked.
>
> For a complete discussion, you can read the PostGIS (GIS spatial 
> objects for Postgresql) mailing list (http://postgis.refractions.net) 
> and the GEOS (Geometry Engine, Open Source) mailing list 
> (http://geos.refractions.net).
>
If you try C++, you will find some nasty name/reserved words collisions, 
but it will work:

#define using __using
#define typeid __typeid
#define typename __typename
#define namespace __namespace
#define delete __delete
extern "C"
{
#include "postgres.h"
#include "executor/spi.h"
#include "funcapi.h"
}
#undef using
#undef typeid
#undef typename
#undef namespace
#undef delete

Fortunately, my code didn't use exceptions...
Regards,
Andreas