SPI_prepare(query, nargs, argtypes)
SPI_prepare creates and returns
an execution plan (parser+planner+optimizer) but doesn't execute
the query. Should only be called from a connected procedure.
When the same or similar query is to be executed repeatedly,
it may be advantageous to perform query planning only once.
SPI_prepare converts a query string
into an execution plan that can be passed repeatedly to
SPI_execp.
A prepared query can be generalized by writing parameters ($1,
$2, etc) in place of what would be constants in a normal query.
The values of the parameters are then specified when SPI_execp is called. This allows the prepared
query to be used over a wider range of situations than would be
possible without parameters.
Note: However, there is a disadvantage: since the planner does not know the values that will be supplied for the parameters, it may make worse query planning choices than it would make for a simple query with all constants visible.
If the query uses parameters, their number and data types must
be specified in the call to SPI_prepare.
The plan returned by SPI_prepare
may be used only in current invocation of the procedure since
SPI_finish frees memory allocated
for a plan. But see SPI_saveplan to
save a plan for longer.
If successful, a non-null pointer will be returned. Otherwise, you'll get a NULL plan. In both cases SPI_result will be set like the value returned by SPI_exec, except that it is set to SPI_ERROR_ARGUMENT if query is NULL or nargs < 0 or nargs > 0 && argtypes is NULL.