Re: A Rant on lock_timeout

On Fri, Oct 4, 2019 at 01:35:57PM +0000, PG Doc comments form wrote:
> The following documentation comment has been logged on the website:
>
> Page: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/12/runtime-config-client.html
> Description:
>
> Hello,
>
> I was looking explicitly for information on the default value of
> lock_timeout and what it does. I got this paragraph:
>
> "Abort any statement that waits longer than the specified number of
> milliseconds while attempting to acquire a lock on a table, index, row, or
> other database object. The time limit applies separately to each lock
> acquisition attempt. The limit applies both to explicit locking requests
> (such as LOCK TABLE, or SELECT FOR UPDATE without NOWAIT) and to
> implicitly-acquired locks. If log_min_error_statement is set to ERROR or
> lower, the statement that timed out will be logged. A value of zero (the
> default) turns this off."
>
> Unfortunately, the crucial bit for me is in a sentence that hardly could be
> any more obscure: `A value of zero (the default) turns this off.` Before
> this sentence there are multiple statements; what exactly does `this` refers
> to? Does a value of zero turns of logging of timed out statements mentioned
> in the previous sentence? Would it be hard to put it like `A default value
> of zero means a statement will wait indefinitely to acquire a lock`.
> I believe the sole purpose of a technical document is to be precise. If I
> had to suggest setting this parameter as a solution to a critical issue of
> connections piling up waiting on locks and depleting connection pools, I can
> never be confident knowing that the current default value turns something
> off.

I completely agree. I have applied the attached patch to all supported
doc versions to move the mention of log_min_error_statement to a more
logical location. Thanks for the report.

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

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