PostgreSQL 8.4.7 Documentation
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# 42.3. Memory Management

PostgreSQL allocates memory within memory contexts, which provide a convenient method of managing allocations made in many different places that need to live for differing amounts of time. Destroying a context releases all the memory that was allocated in it. Thus, it is not necessary to keep track of individual objects to avoid memory leaks; instead only a relatively small number of contexts have to be managed. `palloc` and related functions allocate memory from the "current" context.

`SPI_connect` creates a new memory context and makes it current. `SPI_finish` restores the previous current memory context and destroys the context created by `SPI_connect`. These actions ensure that transient memory allocations made inside your procedure are reclaimed at procedure exit, avoiding memory leakage.

However, if your procedure needs to return an object in allocated memory (such as a value of a pass-by-reference data type), you cannot allocate that memory using `palloc`, at least not while you are connected to SPI. If you try, the object will be deallocated by `SPI_finish`, and your procedure will not work reliably. To solve this problem, use `SPI_palloc` to allocate memory for your return object. `SPI_palloc` allocates memory in the "upper executor context", that is, the memory context that was current when `SPI_connect` was called, which is precisely the right context for a value returned from your procedure.

If `SPI_palloc` is called while the procedure is not connected to SPI, then it acts the same as a normal `palloc`. Before a procedure connects to the SPI manager, the current memory context is the upper executor context, so all allocations made by the procedure via `palloc` or by SPI utility functions are made in this context.

When `SPI_connect` is called, the private context of the procedure, which is created by `SPI_connect`, is made the current context. All allocations made by `palloc`, `repalloc`, or SPI utility functions (except for `SPI_copytuple`, `SPI_returntuple`, `SPI_modifytuple`, and `SPI_palloc`) are made in this context. When a procedure disconnects from the SPI manager (via `SPI_finish`) the current context is restored to the upper executor context, and all allocations made in the procedure memory context are freed and cannot be used any more.

All functions described in this section can be used by both connected and unconnected procedures. In an unconnected procedure, they act the same as the underlying ordinary server functions (`palloc`, etc.).

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