42P14 — Invalid prepared statement definition

At a glance

42P14 (invalid_prepared_statement_definition) A PREPARE command can fail while defining the prepared statement itself.

Meaning

The fixed 18.6 PrepareQuery path rejects a null or empty name for the SQL PREPARE command before the named prepared statement can be registered; the guard exists because the extended protocol has a separate unnamed statement slot. An empty name in a protocol Parse message is therefore not automatically 42P14, and an empty quoted SQL identifier can fail earlier in lexical or parse validation.

Diagnosis

Capture whether the client sent SQL PREPARE or an extended-protocol Parse, and preserve the exact statement name. Distinguish SQL PREPARE’s empty-name guard from a legal unnamed protocol statement, 26000 (prepared statement does not exist), and later parameter/type errors; an empty quoted identifier may fail before this guard is reached.

Response

For SQL PREPARE, send a non-empty, consistently quoted statement name. For extended protocol, retain the unnamed statement slot when that is intentional instead of translating it into SQL PREPARE. If a framework generates names, inspect that naming layer and verify the same session is used for later EXECUTE and DEALLOCATE. An ERROR inside an explicit transaction still requires ROLLBACK or ROLLBACK TO a pre-error savepoint before the next command.

Messages

Representative source message: invalid statement name: must not be empty (ERROR; it has no placeholders).

Versions

The locked catalogue shows this condition by PostgreSQL 7.4; behavior here is fixed to PostgreSQL 18.6 source. Catalogue presence is a range boundary, not proof that every message or feature began in that release.

Related

• 42P05
• 26000

Sources

Source messages, line anchors, and evidence limits are recorded in authored evidence.

• src/backend/commands/prepare.c:73-75 (fixed source)
• src/backend/tcop/postgres.c:1433-1459 (fixed source)