Re: Clarification reqeusted for "select * from a huge table"

On 11/12/07, Richard Huxton <dev@archonet.com> wrote:
> Gokulakannan Somasundaram wrote:

> >>>     I also noticed that it doesn't crash with psql, but it takes a
> >>> long time to show the first set of records. It takes a long time, even
> >>> to quit after i pressed 'q'.
> >>>    With oracle SQLPlus, it is quite instantaneous.

> > Imagine, you need a large batch operation. In oracle we can fire the
> > SQL and we can be sure that the client won't crash, but with postgres
> > we have a region of uncertainity.
>
> Well, if your client doesn't know if it can handle 1 million rows, maybe
> it shouldn't ask for them?

Isn't that exactly his point?  He's talking about the default behavior
of clients designed for postgres, one of which is psql.