There's three prongs to achieve greater efficiency here:

1) Allow reusing a stringbuffer across pq_beginmessage/endmessage,
   with the new pq_beginmessage_reuse/endmessage_reuse. This can be
   beneficial both because it avoids allocating the initial buffer,
   and because it's more likely to already have an correctly sized
   buffer.

2) Replacing pq_sendint() with pq_sendint$width() inline
   functions. Previously unnecessary and unpredictable branches in
   pq_sendint() were needed. Additionally the replacement functions
   are implemented more efficiently.  pq_sendint is now deprecated, a
   separate commit will convert all in-tree callers.

3) Add pq_writeint$width(), pq_writestring(). These rely on sufficient
   space in the StringInfo's buffer, avoiding individual space checks
   & potential individual resizing.  To allow this to be used for
   strings, expose mbutil.c's MAX_CONVERSION_GROWTH.

Followup commits will make use of these facilities.

Author: Andres Freund
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/20170914063418.sckdzgjfrsbekae4@alap3.anarazel.de