Thread: pg_ctl kill INT vs. pg_cancel_backend

Hi,

Is there a substantive difference between the two, or are they just 
different interfaces to the same action?


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Hello,

On 08.12.2018 20:30, Ron wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Is there a substantive difference between the two, or are they just 
> different interfaces to the same action?

I think they both only execute kill() and send a signal to a process. 
But pg_cancel_backend() after checking privileges sends only SIGINT and 
only to a PostgreSQL's backend process.
pg_ctl can send a specified signal to any process. From the documentation:

pg_ctl kill signal_name process_id

Here signal_name is HUP, INT and others.

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Arthur Zakirov
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Russian Postgres Company