Re: Can we remove support for standard_conforming_strings = off yet?

On 2025-12-31 We 12:04 PM, Tom Lane wrote:
> Andrew Dunstan<andrew(at)dunslane(dot)net> writes:
>> On 2025-12-30 Tu 5:50 PM, Tom Lane wrote:
>>> As I was working through it, I realized that there's one
>>> potentially-nasty point that might cause upgrading problems.
>>> To wit, pg_dump and pg_dumpall have historically replicated the
>>> source server's standard_conforming_strings setting into their
>>> output: they emit a SET command for that, and any string literals
>>> appearing in views or the like will be escaped accordingly.
>>> So if your old installation had standard_conforming_strings = off,
>>> and all you have from it is existing pg_dump output (either text
>>> or archive format), you are in a sticky situation because that
>>> dump will not restore cleanly.
>> Have we ever promised that dumps made using pg_dump/pg_dumpall from
>> other than the target version work?
> We may not promise it, but I think we've always tried very hard to
> not break old pg_dump files, precisely because they might be the only
> available backup.
>
>> I don't see this as a big issue, unless I'm misunderstanding.
> Personally I would call it a deal-breaker if I thought it'd affect
> more than a very very tiny number of people. But the entire premise
> of this patch is that nobody is using standard_conforming_strings =
> off in production anymore. If that isn't true it's probably a
> mistake to go forward anyway.
>
>

I think you're probably right that very few people are using it. Not
sure how we'd find out if they are, though.

cheers

andrew

--
Andrew Dunstan
EDB:https://www.enterprisedb.com