Re: Statistics Import and Export

Corey Huinker <corey(dot)huinker(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
>> As far as that goes, it shouldn't be that hard to deal with, at least
>> not for "soft" errors which hopefully cover most input-function
>> failures these days. You should be invoking array_in via
>> InputFunctionCallSafe and passing a suitably-set-up ErrorSaveContext.
>> (Look at pg_input_error_info() for useful precedent.)

> Ah, my understanding may be out of date. I was under the impression that
> that mechanism relied on the the cooperation of the per-element input
> function, so even if we got all the builtin datatypes to play nice with
> *Safe(), we were always going to be at risk with a user-defined input
> function.

That's correct, but it's silly not to do what we can. Also, I imagine
that there is going to be high evolutionary pressure on UDTs to
support soft error mode for COPY, so over time the problem will
decrease --- as long as we invoke the soft error mode.

> 1. NULL input => Return NULL. (because strict).
> 2. Actual error (permissions, cache lookup not found, etc) => Raise ERROR
> (thus ruining binary upgrade)
> 3. Call values are so bad (examples: attname not found, required stat
> missing) that nothing can recover => WARN, return FALSE.
> 4. At least one stakind-stat is wonky (impossible for datatype, missing
> stat pair, wrong type on input parameter), but that's the worst of it => 1
> to N WARNs, write stats that do make sense, return TRUE.
> 5. Hunky-dory. => No warns. Write all stats. return TRUE.

> Which of those seem like good ereturn candidates to you?

I'm good with all those behaviors. On reflection, the design I was
vaguely imagining wouldn't cope with case 4 (multiple WARNs per call)
so never mind that.

regards, tom lane