Re: Reloptions for table access methods

On Sat, Jan 2, 2021 at 6:44 PM Jeff Davis <pgsql(at)j-davis(dot)com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 2020-12-30 at 21:23 +0000, Simon Riggs wrote:
> > But you cannot seriously argue that a one line patch that changes
> > user
> > visible behavior can be acceptable in Postgres core without tests or
> > docs or code comments.
>
> Hi Simon,
>
> Often, good documented APIs come about after a few extensions gain
> experience hacking things together using undocumented assumptions and
> internal APIs. But in this case, extension authors have no opportunity
> to hack in reloptions for a TableAM, because of this needless extra
> check that my patch would eliminate.
>
> The patch does not have any user-visible impact. To have any effect, an
> extension would need to use these internal APIs in a specific way that
> is not documented externally. I see my tiny patch as a tiny improvement
> to the backend code because it eliminates a useless extra check, and
> therefore doesn't need much justification. If others see it as a burden
> on the engine code, that's a different story.
>
> If we insist that this must be a fully-supported feature or nothing at
> all, then I'll withdraw the patch. But I doubt that will result in a
> proper feature for v14, it just means that when we do get around to
> supporting extensible reloptions, there will be no hacks in the wild to
> learn from.

Thanks for the reply. I'm trying to get my head around this before a
longer reply.

--
Simon Riggs http://www.EnterpriseDB.com/