SPI_GETVALUE(3)

📦
version 18.6 · 21 versions
, in alpine 3.23, alpine 3.24, arch rolling, fedora 43, fedora 44, nixos 26.05, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

✨ SPI_GETVALUE ✨

okay bestie, welcome to the SPI_GETVALUE(3) page from the PostgreSQL 18.6 Documentation — yes it's a C function, yes it's giving backend internals, and yes we're gonna make it make sense 💅

🎀 NAME 🎀

SPI_getvalue — bestie, it returns the string value of the specified column. that's the whole job. she's focused. she's employed. periodt 💖

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

char * SPI_getvalue(HeapTuple row, TupleDesc rowdesc, int colnumber)

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so like. SPI_getvalue returns the string representation of the value of the specified column. you hand her a column, she hands you back the vibe as text. iconic behavior honestly 🌈

the result comes back in memory that was allocated using palloc. and no cap — you can use pfree to release that memory when you don't need it anymore. free your girl!! she's not gonna do it herself 🫶

ngl this is the "you allocated it, you free it" situation. it's giving responsibility. it's giving main character energy for your memory management.

💜 ARGUMENTS 💜

  • HeapTuple row — the input row that's getting examined. the subject of the vibe check 🔍
  • TupleDesc rowdesc — the input row description. the little ID card for that row, iykyk
  • int colnumber — the column number. and listen, the count starts at 1, not 0. I know. I KNOW. we've all been burned by this. one-based indexing, no cap 😭

⭐ RETURN VALUE ⭐

she returns the column value! slay! but she'll hand you back NULL in any of these situations, and you need to know all three fr fr:

  • the column is null
  • colnumber is out of range — and when that happens, SPI_result is set to SPI_ERROR_NOATTRIBUTE 💀
  • there's no output function available — and then SPI_result is set to SPI_ERROR_NOOUTFUNC 😭
so yeah, always peek at SPI_result when you get a NULL, because NULL could mean "the value is null" OR "something went wrong." two completely different girls, same NULL outfit 🙈

💖 SEE ALSO 💖

no SEE ALSO refs on this page, bestie — she's standing on her own and honestly? queen behavior 👑

okay that's the whole page!! go forth and get those column values, remember palloc means pfree later, and remember that colnumber starts at 1 🍓

this lil sign-off is coming to you from PostgreSQL 18.6, dated 2026, and this manual page is SPI_GETVALUE(3). mwah 💋 bye bestie!! 🧚✨

📦 where this page comes from