Re: [HACKERS] dubious improvement in new psql

Don Baccus <dhogaza(at)pacifier(dot)com> writes:
> The AOLserver driver for Oracle most
> certainly can reconnect to a broken connection - to tell folks that
> this can't be done with the WAL version of Postgres

I said no such thing!

You certainly *can* reconnect, although under WAL it will take a delay
(or better, a retry loop).

However, I think reconnection has to be integrated into the
application's logic at a level where you can have some idea of what
needs to be redone after reconnecting. That's why I objected to having
psql do it. If psql's only going to do it interactively then I guess
it's safe enough, though.

Question for discussion: when the WAL postmaster is running a database
start or restart, perhaps it should simply delay processing of new
connection requests until the DB is ready, instead of rejecting them
immediately? That would eliminate the need for retry loops in
applications, and thereby avoid wasted retry processing on both sides.
On the other hand, I can see where an unexpected multi-second delay to
connect might be bad news, too. Comments?

regards, tom lane