Re: Aw: Re: Minor documentation error regarding streaming replication protocol

On Thu, Oct 15, 2020 at 11:18:33AM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> writes:
> > On Thu, Oct 15, 2020 at 10:03:46AM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> >> I don't really see why our only documentation choices are "text" or
> >> "bytea". Can't we just write "(raw file contents)" or the like?
>
> > Agreed. The reason they are those labels is that the C code has to
> > label the output fields, so it can only use SQL types. There are many
> > protocol fields mislabeled in this way, not just timeline history.
>
> Ah, right. Well, let's label it as text and then in the description
> of the message, note that the field contains the raw file contents,
> whose encoding is unknown to the server.

OK, but this not would need to be in the protocol docs at the top, not
for the timeline history file, since it affects all columns labeled as
TEXT.

We would want the timeline history file contents label changed from
BYTEA to TEXT in the docs changed for all supported versions, add a C
comment to all backbranches that BYTEA is the same as TEXT protocol
fields, and change the C code to return TEXT IN PG 14. Is that what
people want?

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

The usefulness of a cup is in its emptiness, Bruce Lee