limit query time in the client side of PostgreSQL

I’m trying to query the PostgreSQL database, but this is a public server and I really don’t want to waste a lot of CPU for a long time.

So I wonder if there is some way to limit my query time for a specific duration, for example, 3/5/10 minutes.

I assume that there is syntax like limit but not for results amount but for query duration.

Thanks for any kind of help.

Answer

Set statement_timeout, then your query will be terminated with an error if it exceeds that limit.

According to this documentation:

statement_timeout (integer)

Abort any statement that takes more than
the specified number of milliseconds, starting from the time the
command arrives at the server from the client. If
log_min_error_statement is set to ERROR or lower, the statement that
timed out will also be logged. A value of zero (the default) turns
this off.

Setting statement_timeout in postgresql.conf is not recommended
because it would affect all sessions.