Re: BUG #18711: Attempting a connection with a database name longer than 63 characters now fails

On Mon, Dec 2, 2024 at 06:16:19PM -0500, Tom Lane wrote:
> Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> writes:
> > I am concerned we are going to get a lot of complaints about this
> > restricted change because most people are happily using whatever
> > encoding they want, and as long as they don't hit the 64-byte limit,
> > they are fine. Are people going to be happy with this restriction just
> > to keep 64+-byte identifiers safe?
>
> That's a remarkably rose-tinted view of the current state of affairs.
> Reality is that using multiple encodings in shared catalogs just plain
> doesn't work very well. Even something as simple as "select datname
> from pg_database" is likely to give garbage if there are entries in
> encodings that don't match your current database's encoding. What
> Thomas is proposing is to formalize and then enforce the two usage
> patterns that we know work okay.
>
> Moreover, the proposal also includes a third backwards-compatibility
> mode that will let anyone who does like the current approach to keep
> using it. So I'm unclear on why you think there's a big downside.

I have not heard of anyone complaining about the problem of viewing the
shared catalog columns so I didn't consider that benefit.

--
Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> https://momjian.us
EDB https://enterprisedb.com

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