Re: POLA violation with \c service=

David Fetter wrote:
> I've noticed that psql's \c function handles service= requests in a
> way that I can only characterize as broken.
>
> This came up in the context of connecting to a cloud hosting service
> named after warriors or a river or something, whose default hostnames
> are long, confusing, and easy to typo, so I suspect that service= may
> come up more often going forward than it has until now.
>
> For example, when I try to use
>
> \c "service=foo"
>
> It will correctly figure out which database I'm trying to connect to,
> but fail to notice that it's on a different host, port, etc., and
> hence fail to connect with a somewhat unhelpful error message.
>
> I can think of a few approaches for fixing this:
>
> 0. Leave it broken.
> 1. Disable "service=" requests entirely in \c context, and error out if attempted.
> 2. Ensure that \c actually uses all of the available information.
>
> Is there another one I missed?
>
> If not, which of the approaches seems reasonable?

#2 is the correct solution, #1 a band aid.

Yours,
Laurenz Albe