Re: improving user.c error messages

On Fri, Jan 27, 2023 at 03:15:07PM -0800, Nathan Bossart wrote:
> One thing that feels a bit odd is how some of the DETAILs mention the
> operation being attempted while others do not. For example, we have
>
> ERROR: permission denied to drop role
> DETAIL: You must have SUPERUSER privilege to drop roles with SUPERUSER.
>
> In this case, the DETAIL explains the action that is prohibited. In other
> cases, we have something like
>
> ERROR: permission denied to alter role
> DETAIL: You must have CREATEROLE privilege and ADMIN OPTION on role "myrole".
>
> which does not. I think this is okay because adding "to alter the role" to
> the end of the DETAIL seems kind of awkward. But in other cases, such as
>
> ERROR: permission denied to use replication slots
> DETAIL: You must have REPLICATION privilege.
>
> adding the operation to the end seems less awkward (i.e., "You must have
> REPLICATION privilege to use replication slots."). I don't think there's
> any information lost by omitting the action in the DETAIL, so perhaps this
> is just a stylistic choice. I think I'm inclined to add the action to the
> DETAIL whenever it doesn't make the message lengthy and awkward, and leave
> it out otherwise. Thoughts?

Here is a new patch set with this change and some other light editing.

--
Nathan Bossart
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