Re: NOT ENFORCED constraint feature

On Mon, 10 Feb 2025 at 13:48, Álvaro Herrera <alvherre(at)alvh(dot)no-ip(dot)org>
wrote:

I think this proposed state of affairs is problematic. Current queries
> that assume that pg_constraint.convalidated means that a constraint is
> validated would be broken. My suggestion at this point is that instead of
> adding a separate boolean column to pg_constraint we should be replacing
> `bool convalidated` with `char convalidity`, with new defines for all the
> possible states we require: enforced-and-valid ("V"alid),
> enforced-not-validated ("i"nvalid), not-enforced-and-not-valid (terribly
> "I"nvalid or maybe "U"nenforced),
> not-enforced-but-was-valid-before-turning-unenforced ("u"nenforced).
> Breaking user queries would make all apps reassess what do they actually
> want to know about the constraint without assumptions of how enforcement
> worked in existing Postgres releases.
>

I'm having a lot of trouble understanding the operational distinction
between your 'u' and 'U'. If it's not enforced, it cannot be assumed to be
valid, regardless of whether it was valid in the past. I'm not sure what I
think of a single character vs. 2 booleans, but there are only 3 sensible
states either way: valid enforced, invalid enforced, and invalid unenforced.

Additionally, if there are officially 4 status possibilities then all code
that looks for unenforced constraints has to look for both valid and
invalid unenforced constraints if we use a char; it's not as bad with 2
booleans because one can just check the "enforced" boolean.