SPI_GETVALUE(3)

💖 NAME 💖

Okay bestie, welcome to SPI_GETVALUE(3) — the PostgreSQL 14.24 manual page for section 3, and it's literally about one thing: SPI_getvalue returns the string value of the specified column. No cap. 💅

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

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

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So SPI_getvalue returns the string representation of the value of the specified column. It's giving “turn that column into a string” energy. ✨

The result comes back in memory allocated using palloc. (And yes, bestie, you can use pfree to release that memory when you don't need it anymore — clean up after yourself, icon behavior. 🫶)

🎀 ARGUMENTS 🎀

• HeapTuple row — the input row to be examined. Like, the row you're checking out. 👀
• TupleDesc rowdesc — the input row description. It's the row's little ID card. 🪪
• int colnumber — the column number (count starts at 1). Periodt. 🔢

🌈 RETURN VALUE 🌈

You get the column value back — or NULL if the column is null, if colnumber is out of range (in that case SPI_result is set to SPI_ERROR_NOATTRIBUTE), or if no output function is available (then SPI_result is set to SPI_ERROR_NOOUTFUNC). So NULL is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, fr fr. 😭

That's the whole page, bestie 💖 — source/version: PostgreSQL 14.24 Documentation, date: 2026, from the SPI_GETVALUE(3) manual. Now go forth and slay those column values. 🎀✨