Doc update proposal for the note on log_statement in the runtime config for logging page - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

Hey pgsql hackers

This is my first email to this list. I'm reaching out about a possible doc update for the log_statement parameter.

Here's the current doc - https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/runtime-config-logging.html

The doc already has a Note bubble for the log_statement parameter with some important callouts.

I am proposing adding something there to call out that there is no guarantee provided that all committed statements in the DB will be logged. The logging to the log file is not part of PGs ACID compliant DB engine but instead a separate best-effort system. This might be obvious to some people but I don't think it is for everyone.

In many cases people will use these logs for security, legal or compliance reasons and I think it's relevant to users to make the consistency guarantees explicit and clear.

Please let me know what you think and also if you think there's a different place where this notification would be better placed. Maybe it already exists somewhere else.

This would be very similar to the documentation that MySQL have over here - https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.4/en/audit-log-logging-configuration.html

"Regardless of strategy, logging occurs on a best-effort basis, with no guarantee of consistency."

I believe the same applies to the PGAudit extension but I'm starting out here.

Thanks for your time,

Daniel