Re: explaining "context" column of pg_settings

What did we ever do with this idea?

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Tom Lane wrote:
> Josh Kupershmidt <schmiddy(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> > The six different kinds of contexts in the pg_settings system view
> > aren't terribly well documented. The current doc page says only:
> > "Context required to set the parameter's value". A search through the
> > archives turned up only a brief explanation[1] of what "postmaster"
> > means for this setting. The recent book "PostgreSQL 9.0 High
> > Performance"[2] complains "The context field isn't documented very
> > well in the official manual."
>
> > I've put together a patch to help document these values based on the
> > comments in guc.h, the explanations in [2], and my own understanding.
> > My crude explanations could probably use some further wordsmithing and
> > check for accuracy :-)
>
> I did some work on this patch and attach an updated version. I'm not
> however convinced that it's a good idea to bury this material in
> catalogs.sgml --- I think few people ever read that chapter. Shouldn't
> we put this into config.sgml instead, somewhere in section 18.1?
>
> > I avoided just copy-pasting from guc.h, particulary because some of
> > the explanations struck me as confusing or incorrect.
>
> Well, your replacement explanations seemed even less correct ;-).
> Also, I think what the text needs to emphasize is *how* to change
> each setting type, so that prompted some of my editing.
>
> regards, tom lane
>

Content-Description: guc-context-docs-2.patch

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Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> http://momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com

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