Re: Misleading error "permission denied for table"

On Wed, Oct 16, 2024 at 07:36:29PM +0530, Ashutosh Bapat wrote:
> In privileges.sql there are tests for column level privileges e.g.
>
> INSERT INTO atest5(two) VALUES (6) ON CONFLICT (two) DO UPDATE set
> three = 10 RETURNING atest5.three;
> ERROR: permission denied for table atest5
>
> In the above case the current user regress_priv_user4, doesn't have
> privileges to access atest5.three. But the error does not mention
> atest5.three anywhere. In fact, if the same query were to be changed
> to return atest5.four, it would succeed since the user has privileges
> to access column atest5.four.
>
> Shouldn't we report "permission defined for column atest5.three?

We do have "permission denied for column" messages in aclchk.c (e.g.,
aclcheck_error_col()), but I don't see them actually used anywhere (or at
least they don't show up in any expected regression test output). I'm
inclined to agree that a more specific error would be nice, but I worry
there's some hidden complexity that's prevented it thus far...

--
nathan