Re: Function to track shmem reinit time

Alexander Korotkov <a(dot)korotkov(at)postgrespro(dot)ru> writes:
> From my point of view criticism of this patch was addressed by
> argument, that pg_shmem_init_time() allows to calculate the server
> uptime [1]. This is very basic information, which is reasonable to
> get without log files parsing. It's more than year since [1] is
> unanswered. So, I'm going to push this if no objections.

I'm still going to object to it, on the grounds that

(1) it's exposing an implementation detail that clients should not be
concerned with, and that we might change in future. The name isn't
even well chosen --- if the argument is that it's useful to monitor
server uptime, why isn't the name "pg_server_uptime"?

(2) if your server is crashing often enough that postmaster start
time isn't an adequate substitute, you have way worse problems than
whether you can measure it. I'd rather see us put effort into
fixing whatever the underlying problem is.

regards, tom lane