Re: SQL command to edit postgresql.conf, with comments

Josh Berkus <josh(at)agliodbs(dot)com> writes:
>> Postgres has "COMMENT ON ..." SQL for various database objects and I
>> assumed that said comments would be stored in the system catalog.

> Oh. Now that's an interesting perspective ... you're suggesting that we
> take the comments and apply them as COMMENTS on the specific pg_settings?

Well, if the settings were stored in a catalog ... which they are not
... that might be a useful idea.

The reason that COMMENT ON isn't a terribly helpful analogy is that it
puts the burden on the user to associate specific comment texts with
specific database objects. The problem with parsing and modifying
freestyle comments as seen in postgresql.conf is exactly (or mostly)
that there's no reasonable way of mechanically determining which
comments are associated with which setting. We could invent some
arbitrary rule or other, but it'd have little to do with the way
people perceive what's in such a file.

I agree with Josh's proposal: keep mechanically-generated settings in a
separate file, and don't even pretend to allow comments to be kept there.

regards, tom lane