BUG #1531: rotated log truncation broken

The following bug has been logged online:

Bug reference: 1531
Logged by: Markus Bertheau
Email address: twanger(at)bluetwanger(dot)de
PostgreSQL version: 8.0.1
Operating system: Linux FC3
Description: rotated log truncation broken
Details:

The log truncation is broken for me. It works as advertised, and I follow
the argumentation behind it, but for my scenario it is not working:

I use the computer only in work hours; it's shut down in the night.

I use the standard log rotation thing that is set up in the RPM distributed
by the PGDG.

My logs are not truncated because postgres was not running when the time
based rotation occurs.

So my logs are growing and growing :/

I see that if you would "blindly" truncate time-based rotated logs on server
start, that would be counter productive, because you may want to have the
logs of the full day.

So what about a timestamp at server shutdown, and at server start you handle
the log rotation thing as if pg ran all the time, just that nothing has
happend since that timestamp? That way the truncation would only indeed take
place if the rotation time period was over.

If that doesn't work out for some reason, I think another solution is needed
nevertheless.

Thanks for your consideration

Markus Bertheau