Re: ALTER SYSTEM SET command to change postgresql.conf parameters (RE: Proposal for Allow postgresql.conf values to be changed via SQL [review])

From: Stephen Frost <sfrost(at)snowman(dot)net>
To: Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us>
Cc: Amit Kapila <amit(dot)kapila16(at)gmail(dot)com>, Martijn van Oosterhout <kleptog(at)svana(dot)org>, Alvaro Herrera <alvherre(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com>, Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com>, Dimitri Fontaine <dimitri(at)2ndquadrant(dot)fr>, Andres Freund <andres(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com>, Josh Berkus <josh(at)agliodbs(dot)com>, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>, Fujii Masao <masao(dot)fujii(at)gmail(dot)com>, "pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org" <pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Re: ALTER SYSTEM SET command to change postgresql.conf parameters (RE: Proposal for Allow postgresql.conf values to be changed via SQL [review])
Date: 2013-08-28 18:30:41
Message-ID: 20130828183041.GP2706@tamriel.snowman.net
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* Bruce Momjian (bruce(at)momjian(dot)us) wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 27, 2013 at 09:04:00AM +0530, Amit Kapila wrote:
> > > I really hate the idea that someone could configure 'X' in
> > > postgresql.conf and because the auto.conf line is later in the file,
> > > it's able to override the original setting. Does not strike me as
> > > intuitive at all.
> >
> > This is currently how include mechanism works in postgresql.conf,
> > changing that for this special case can be costly and moreover the
> > specs for this patch were layout from beginning that way.
>
> Agreed. If you are worried about ALTER SYSTEM changing postgresql.conf
> settings, you should move the include_auto line to the top of
> postgresql.conf, but I don't think that should be the default.

While I appreciate that there are bootstrap-type issues with this, I
really don't like this idea of "later stuff can just override earlier
stuff".

include files and conf.d-style options are for breaking the config up,
not to allow you to override options because a file came later than an
earlier file. Our particular implementation of config-file reading
happens to lend itself to later-definition-wins, but that's really
counter-intuitive for anyone unfamiliar with PG, imv.

Thanks,

Stephen

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