Re: Per-database and per-user GUC settings - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Bruce Momjian
Subject Re: Per-database and per-user GUC settings
Date
Msg-id 200202210447.g1L4l6x25888@candle.pha.pa.us
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: Per-database and per-user GUC settings  (Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>)
List pgsql-hackers
test. Sorry.

Tom Lane wrote:
> Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> writes:
> > I think it's desirable and fully intentional.  How else would you override
> > command-line args without restarting the server?
> 
> I say you wouldn't.  If it's on the command line then it overrides
> postgresql.conf for that run of the postmaster; full stop, no "if"s.
> If you wanted it to be changeable within-run by postgresql.conf then you
> should have edited postgresql.conf to start with.
> 
> As the implementation currently works, applying a setting via the
> command line is entirely unsafe unless you then back it up with fixing
> the value in postgresql.conf; otherwise an unrelated change to
> postgresql.conf, perhaps much later, blows the command-line setting
> out of the water.  You might as well eliminate command-line settings
> entirely, if they have to be accompanied by a matching change in
> postgresql.conf in order to work reliably.
> 
> IMHO the only reason we haven't gotten squawks about this is that
> (a) the majority of uses of command-line arguments are for options
> that can't be changed after postmaster start anyway (-i, -p, -B, -N);
> (b) since the factory-default postgresql.conf has all settings commented
> out, it doesn't actually cause reversions to happen at SIGHUP.
> 
> If any significant number of people were actually being exposed to the
> current behavior, we'd be getting complaints; lots of 'em.  At the
> moment it's only a corner case because of considerations (a) and (b),
> so few people have had it happen to them.
> 
> > but in my mind, if you're using command-line arguments
> > in permanent setups, you're not trying hard enough.
> 
> You're essentially saying that command-line arguments are only useful
> for prototyping changes that you intend to make in postgresql.conf
> immediately thereafter.  Again, why have we got a command-line option
> facility at all?  Might as well make the change in postgresql.conf
> to begin with, if that's the viewpoint.
> 
>             regards, tom lane
> 
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