Re: [PATCH] Cleanup of GUC units code

Greg Smith <gsmith(at)gregsmith(dot)com> writes:
> What I would like to see (but don't
> have nearly enough time to argue in support of considering the resistance
> to change here) is that this syntax:

> shared_buffers=1024

> Would assume the user meant 1024 *bytes*, with the server silently
> rounding that up to the nearest 8k block. Then the whole issue of "do
> they mean bits or bytes?" goes away, because no one would ever have to
> include the "B".

How do you come to that conclusion? Leaving off the unit entirely
certainly doesn't make the user's intent clearer.

There's also a pretty serious compatibility problem, which is that
settings that had always worked before would suddenly be completely
broken (off by a factor of 8192 qualifies as "broken" in my book).

I think that if we wanted to change anything here, we'd have to
*require* a unit spec on unit-affected parameters, at least for a period
of several releases. Otherwise the confusion would be horrendous.

> That paves the way for making it easy to support
> case-insensitive values without pedantic confusion.

Again, you're just making this up. It doesn't make anything clearer.

regards, tom lane