Re: Proposal: wildcards in pg_service.conf

Tom Lane wrote:
>> I'd like to extend the libpq service file by allowing
>> wildcards, e.g. like this:
>
>> [%]
>> host=dbhost.mycompany.com
>> dbname=%
>
>> Such an entry would match all service parameters,
>> and all ocurrences of the wildcard right of a = would
>> be replaced with the service parameter.
>
> This seems poorly thought out. How could you have any other service
> entries besides this one? What is the point of doing it like this
> and not simply overriding the service's database selection?

You could have other service entries if you put them _before_
the wildcard entry.

Your second critizism is valid - you could handle this case without
wildcards.

> The special case for LDAP makes it even more obvious that this is
> a kluge.

The LDAP case is the main motivation why I would like to have
wildcards, so that all our databases could be handled with one
entry in the service file. Currently we have to add an entry to the
file for every new database we want to access.

Do you think that the idea of wildcards for the service file
is a bad one in general?

Or could there be a more generally useful realization of that
concept?

Yours,
Laurenz Albe