Re: RFC: programmable file format for postgresql.conf - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

Álvaro Hernández Tortosa wrote
>>   Note that you are not required to maintain your configuration data in a
>> postgresql.conf-formatted file.  You can keep it anywhere you like, GUI
>> around in it, and convert it back to the required format.  Most of the
>
>     I think it is not a very good idea to encourage GUI tools or tools to
> auto-configure postgres to use a separate configuration file and then
> convert it to postgresql.conf. That introduces a duplicity with evil
> problems if either source of data is modified out-of-the-expected-way.
>
>     That's why I'm suggesting a config file that is, at the same time,
> usable by both postgres and other external tools. That also enables
> other features such as editing the config file persistently through a
> SQL session.

For my money I'd rather have a single file and/or directory-structure where
raw configuration settings are saved in the current 'key = value' format
with simple comments allowed and ignored by PostgreSQL.  And being simple
key-value the risk of "out-of-the-expected-way" changes would be minimal.

If you want to put an example configuration file out there, one that will
not be considered to the true configuration, with lots of comments and
meta-data then great.  I'm hoping that someday there is either a
curses-based and even full-fledged GUI that beginners can use to generate
the desired configuration.

If we want to put a separate "configuration meta-data" file out there to
basically provide a database from which third-party tools can pull out this
information then great.  I would not incorporate that same information into
the main PostgreSQL configuration file/directory-structure.  The biggest
advantage is that the meta-data database can be readily modified without any
concern regarding such changes impacting running systems upon update.  Then,
tools simply need to import "two" files instead of one, link together the
meta-data key with the configuration key, and do whatever they were going to
do anyway.

If indeed that target audience is going to be novices then a static
text-based document is not going to be the most desirable interface to
present.  At worse we should simply include a comment-link at the top of the
document to a web-page where an interactive tool for configuration file
creation would exist.  That tool, at the end of the process, could provide
the user with text to copy-paste/save into a specified area on the server so
the customizations made would override the installed defaults.

David J.





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