Multiple queries in parametized query

[officer-rosmarino]

If I run the following code

query = `
  INSERT INTO test_table (id, name, age) VALUES ($1, $2, $3);
  UPDATE test_table SET name='Alice' WHERE id=1`;
params = [2, 'Bob', 78];

 client.query(query, query_params)
  .then(() => {
    client.release();
    console.log('ok'); 
  }).catch(err => {
    client.release();
    console.log(err.message);
  });

I end up getting the following cannot insert multiple commands into a prepared statement.

Why is it like this? What are the reasons?
I think it would be really useful to be able to run multiple commands in the same prepared statement, in order to be able to run a single query with many ( N) commands, instead of N different queries with 1 single command.

I'd like to open up a discussion about this, if it has not been discussed before.

[abenhamdine]

see #1388 and related threads for more explanation

[officer-rosmarino]

@abenhamdine thanks!

[brianc]

@honestserpent PostgreSQL itself doesn't support this operation. Use a flow control library, async/await, etc & send each query one after another. Or if you don't care about transactions you can use await Promise.all([pool.query('one'), pool.query('two')]) and do two queries at once. Generally though the best thing to do is just send them one at a time - that's how PostgreSQL was designed to work on a protocol level and it ends up being the easiest to reason about errors in your application this way as well I've found. 😄

@abenhamdine I'll try to get to that doc as soon as I can! It definitely does seem like a question that comes up frequently.