Re: Patch for listing runtime option details through server executable (pg_guc)

Quoting Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>:

> > Should options not for general use (e.g., session_auth_is_superuser)
> > be hidden from this tool? Are they? What other provisions of this
> > kind does this tool make?
>
> The original intent of the standalone tool was to display stuff that
> could usefully be set in postgresql.conf, and I think it's important
> to maintain that as an available behavior (though I wouldn't object
> to making other subsets available as well). The patch includes a
> couple more flag bits to try to identify the behaviors of various
> variables. (I've not checked Aizaz' settings for the flags though,
> there might be some mistakes.)

There are two new flags as part of this patch, NOT_IN_SAMPLE_CONF and
DISALLOW_IN_CONF_FILE.

NOT_IN_SAMPLE_CONF are all the options that do not appear in
postgres.conf.sample, a subset of these variables may also be marked
DISALLOW_IN_CONF_FILE, indicating that it should not be possible to set them in
the conf file at all, (even though they can be set at runtime), for example:
server_encoding, server_version etc.

Options marked as NOT_IN_SAMPLE_CONF, DISALLOW_IN_SAMPLE_CONF_FILE, or
GUC_NO_SHOW_ALL, are not displayed by --long-help (or it's new named
counterpart), unless the variable is specifically asked for. So for example,
'postmaster --long-help server_version', would display information about
server_version, although a general listing, 'postmaster --long-help' would not.

I set these flags as best I could with my limited knowledge of each option, it's
possible that some of them may be set incorrectly.

Thanks for all the comments,
Aizaz