Re: Reword docs of feature "Remove temporary files after backend crash"

On Sat, Oct 09, 2021 at 09:18:24PM +0530, Bharath Rupireddy wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 8, 2021 at 4:27 PM Bharath Rupireddy <bharath(dot)rupireddyforpostgres(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > The commit [1] for the feature "Remove temporary files after backend
> > crash" introduced following in the docs:
> > + <para>
> > + When set to <literal>on</literal>, which is the default,
> > + <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> will automatically remove
> > + temporary files after a backend crash. If disabled, the files will be
> > + retained and may be used for debugging, for example. Repeated crashes
> > + may however result in accumulation of useless files.
> > + </para>
> >
> > The term backend means the user sessions (see from the glossary, at
> > [2]). It looks like the code introduced by the commit [1] i.e. the
> > temp table removal gets hit not only after the backend crash, but also
> > after checkpointer, bg writer, wal writer, auto vac launcher, logical
> > repl launcher and so on. It is sort of misleading to the normal users.
> > With the commit [3] clarifying these processes in master branch [4],
> > do we also need to modify the doc added by commit [1] in PG master at
> > least?
> >
> > [1] commit cd91de0d17952b5763466cfa663e98318f26d357
> > Author: Tomas Vondra <tomas(dot)vondra(at)postgresql(dot)org>
> > Date: Thu Mar 18 16:05:03 2021 +0100
> >
> > Remove temporary files after backend crash
> >
> > [2] PG 14 - https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/glossary.html#GLOSSARY-BACKEND
> >
> > [3] commit d3014fff4cd4dcaf4b2764d96ad038f3be7413b0
> > Author: Alvaro Herrera <alvherre(at)alvh(dot)no-ip(dot)org>
> > Date: Mon Sep 20 12:22:02 2021 -0300
> >
> > Doc: add glossary term for "auxiliary process"
> >
> > [4] PG master - https://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/glossary.html
>
> Here's the patch modifying the docs slightly. Please review it.

I doubt there's much confusion here - crashes are treated the same. I think
the fix would be to say "server crash" rather than backend crash.

--
Justin