Thanks again Tom - seems upgrading to 7.3 is the answer to most of my
probs - but I'm not sure if I want to open that can of worms - quick
clarification - do you think the problem occured at the moment of "fetch
into " or when it tried to return the results?
glenn
> Try 7.3 --- plpgsql functions don't support returning sets in
> earlier releases. (You can't do it quite that way in 7.3,
> either; you need RETURN NEXT. See the documentation.)
>
> > --Heres the result, which comes after 5 min of hdd light thrashing,
> > capslock light doesn't respond and gui completely freezes.
>
> On my machine, 7.2 fails with
> ERROR: Memory exhausted in AllocSetContextCreate(8192)
> after about 20 seconds. There's no obvious loss of responsiveness of
> the rest of the machine meanwhile. I suspect your machine is poorly
> configured --- better compare the max-memory-per-process kernel setting
> with the actual amount of physical RAM and swap space. You've evidently
> got it set up in a way that allows a runaway process to drive it into
> swap hell.
>
> regards, tom lane
>