Why Use `db.Exec()` and Prepared Statements in Go's Database Interactions?

Why Use db.Exec() or Prepared Statements in Go?

Golang's database/sql package offers two methods to execute SQL statements: db.Exec() for operations that don't return rows (like insert, delete, update) and db.Query() for operations that do.

While the documentation suggests using db.Exec() for non-querying operations, many developers wonder why to bother with prepared statements at all.

Benefits of db.Exec()

Despite db.Query() creating prepared statements under the hood, db.Exec() still provides benefits:

• Retrieving Affected Row Count: db.Exec() returns a result that indicates the number of rows affected by the query, allowing you to handle specific scenarios, such as deleting rows. Contrast this with db.Query() which returns row objects.
• Simplicity for Non-Query Operations: For operations where you don't need the returned result, using db.Exec() is more concise and avoids the risk of leaving open connections (like when discarding db.Rows).

Prepared Statements in Go

The documentation's claim about automatic statement preparation with db.Query() may vary depending on the database driver used. However, creating and manually reusing prepared statements can still enhance performance for oft-executed queries.

The PostgreSQL documentation explains how prepared statements optimize performance by reducing the need for parsing and planning queries multiple times. By preparing a statement once and executing it multiple times with different parameters, you can skip these costly operations.

In summary, while db.Exec() provides specific benefits for non-querying operations, manually preparing and caching statements can optimize performance for frequent queries.

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